Che fi^cE of the SioRy 
Cmly EducatToi 




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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE 



PLACE OF THE STORY 



EAELT EDUCATION 



AND OTHER ESSAYS 



BY 

SARA E. WILT 



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BOSTON, U.S.A. 3-T^^X 

PUBLISHED BY GINN & COMPANY 
1892 



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Copyright, 1892, 
By SARA E. WILTSE. 



Typography by J. S. Gushing & Co., Boston, U.S.A. 



Presswork by Ginn & Co., Boston, U.S.A. 



The Author gratefully acknowledges the courtesy 
of the editors of the Christian Register, the Christian 
Union, and the American Journal of Psychology in 
allowing this reprint of essays which first appeared in 
their columns. 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Place of the Story in Early Education . . 1 
Study of Children. 

Part I. The Child a Volume to be read . . 14 

Part II. Physical Phenomena an Alphabet of 

Feeling 23 

Part III. Thought succeeding Feeling : Ryth- 
mic Sense an Intellectual Lever .... 32 

Part IV. Finger Songs related to Family 

Life and the Imaginative Faculty ... 41 

Part V. Songs and Games for the Cultiva- 
tion of the Senses : Their Right Use and 
their Dangers 51 

Part VI. Natural Phenomena related to the 

Spiritual Life of the Child 60 

Part VII. The Dull Child the Wise Man's 

Problem 67 

v 



v i CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

... 70 



Children's Habits 

Ioney 

.... 



Learning to use Money 93 



Sound-Blindness 
A Study of Ado 
Mental Imagery of Boys H° 



A Study of Adolescence • 1° 8 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 



The writer of this book loves children. She has 
voluntarily gone down from work in higher grades 
to teach the youngest. She is an excellent story- 
teller to children. Like Dujardin, she does not 
believe in art for art's sake ; but out of a mind well- 
stored with the best, she adapts, and often invents, 
her tales as a means of moral improvement. 

The woman's kingdom is fast coming in school 
work, as statistics everywhere show. It should be a 
kingdom in which love is supreme. Perhaps men 
teachers are more prone to regard chiefly the subject- 
matter of culture, to mechanize, to instruct, to re- 
spect logical order. But all teaching, especially that 
of the very young, must always be a work of love 
to be really effective. This was its original motive ; 
yet, so far have we gone in our idolatry of the mate- 
rial of culture, so far have we forgotten that the 
dominant motive of the Great Teacher must animate 
all good and true teaching, that it seems almost like 
a Copernicus-revolution to make the child, and not 
knowledge, the centre of the whole educational sys- 
tem, and to insist that its nature and need must 
dominate everything in education, and that child- 

vii 



Vill INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 

study so directed as to instruct concerning child- 
nature and to awaken child-love, should be the 
beginning of the teacher's wisdom. 

Love of childhood and youth has always been one 
of the strongest incentives to high thoughts and 
noble deeds. All the teachings of Socrates seem 
inspired by love of the best Greek youths. The 
same was true of Fichte. Pestalozzi found his in- 
spiration in the love of younger and less favored 
children, and Froebel's heart went out toward the 
promise and potency of yet younger children. 
Between two teachers, one trained in the best nor- 
mal college, but unsympathetic and devoted to 
ready-made methods, and the other with a heart 
full of love, but ignorant of even the three R's, 
what parent of young children would hesitate ? 
The love would bring the knowledge, but knowl- 
edge cannot bring the love. This author does what 
she can to stir up women to do in their own way 
what men have long striven to do in theirs, and 
would see knowledge, not less but ever more, every- 
where subordinated, as she seeks to subordinate the 
story, as a means to mental and moral growth. 

G. STANLEY HALL. 
Ashfield, Mass., August 30, 1892. 



THE PLACE OF THE STORY IN 
EARLY EDUCATION. 1 



To rightly place the story, one must first 
know something of its history. That the stories 
of a people have given us our best glimpses of 
the life of that people is no less true than that 
the character of its individuals has been modi- 
fied by these same tales. Sir George W. Cox, 
who has made a searching study of the myths 
of the Aryan nations, says there is ample evi- 
dence that the popular tales of Germany, Nor- 
way and India at the present day were well 
known in Greece and elsewhere for centuries 
before the Christian era, and they form in the 
strictest sense of the words, and have formed for 
thousands of years, the folk-lore, or learning of 

1 Read before the Eastern Kindergarten Association of Boston, 
Mass. 



Z THE PLACE OF THE STORY 

the people, embodying practically their whole 
knowledge of the outer world. 

Such is the antiquity of the popular story. 

The educated and the uneducated can meet 
in perfect sympathy upon this common ground. 
The delight in Norse and Greek myths is not a 
royal one — the man who traces them through 
the various languages in which they may have 
been clothed may, perchance, hear the same 
stories with Irish brogue or German accent 
wherever children congregate to " tell stories." 

Odin and Baldner, Freya and Brynhild, Jupi- 
ter, Juno and Io, with their loves and lives, 
afford the student of folk-lore such delight that 
he is in danger of forgetting that here in the 
nineteenth century we have hero-worshippers, 
miracle-believers, myth-makers — all ha the per- 
son of the little child. 

This period in the child's life corresponds to 
that in the life of the race when a rainbow was 
the bridge to heaven, and a flower the slipper 
of Venus. 

We have no right to trifle with our little myth- 
maker. We have no right to tell him all the 



IN EARLY EDUCATION. O 

old stories simply because they are old. The 
tragedy of Red Riding Hood is not better than 
the story of the Water Babies simply because 
it is older ; we must have some other standard 
of value for literature than that for cheese. 

The old stories fed the patriotism of the peo- 
ple ; they nourished the morals and sustained 
the courage of men and women ; Beauty 
vanquished the Beast and restored him to his 
princely birthright — goodness triumphed — the 
very garments of the gods were near enough 
for the common people to touch them. 

But we must have a specific plan and purpose 
for our story. It cannot be better shown than 
by a few illustrations. The value of the per- 
sonal equation is sufficient apology for using 
my own stories for this purpose. 

There was in my kindergarten many years 
ago a little boy whose deceit and cruelty were 
quite abnormal ; he would smile in my face with 
seraphic sweetness while with his heavy shoe he 
would be crushing his neighbor's toes ; he would 
put his arm about a playmate with a facial ex- 
pression of great tenderness and drive a pin into 



4 THE PLACE OF THE STORY 

the arm he pretended to caress. All usual meth- 
ods of correction were exhausted, and yet he 
seemed incorrigible. At last I wrote a story 

/ entitled the Fairy True Child, into which I put 
my strongest effort to reach this untruthful 
child. I told it to the class, and before it was 
concluded this boy's head was low upon his 

/breast, his cheeks aflame with conscious guilt. 
No direct reference was made to him ; no other 
child thought of him in connection with the 
story. The next day he asked to have it re- 
peated, and his conduct was noticeably better ; 
the story became his moral tonic, and one glad 
day he threw his arms about me, saying he 
wanted to keep his Fairy True Child always. 
At the end of the year, when he was to be pro- 
moted to primary school, his father visited the 
kindergarten, begging that he might be retained 
there another year; for something had appar- 
ently remade the child, he had grown so gentle 
with the baby at home, and until of late they 
had had grave fears of his killing it. 

I made the acquaintance of a feeble-minded 
child. His greatest difficulty seemed to lie in a 



IN EARLY EDUCATION. 

frightful mental inertia. Some of his thoughts 
were beautiful, but he would dream of the Lore- 
lei when he ought to be mastering the multi- 
plication table, and his personal habits were 
quite disgusting. He became fond of me, and 
when I left him for my summer vacation it 
was with a promise that I would write a story 
expressly for him. Never did I set myself a 
more difficult task — and with more anxiety 
than ever went with manuscript to a publisher 
I sent him this : — 

THE LORELEI AND THE LOST FAIRY. 

On the banks of the Rhine sat a lovely Lor- 
elei. Her eyes were blue as the corn-flower, her 
hair floated over her shoulders like a cloud 
of spun gold, and her smile was like the sun- 
shine after rain. Her snowy, but soft, warm 
hands were clasped behind her head. She was 
resting after a playful plunge in the water. All 
these made her look like some painter's dream 
of happiness ; at least, so thought a tearful, home- 
sick little fairy who came near the Lorelei as if 
to worship, where he dared not hope for com- 



6 THE PLACE OF THE STORY 

fort ; but the Lorelei saw his tear-stained face, 
and taking him upon the tip of her pretty 
white finger she asked him of his home and 
his sorrows. 

" Alas ! beautiful Lorelei/' said the tiny, half- 
starved fairy, " my home should be across the 
sea, but the little German boy who ought to 
shelter and love me, cruelly neglects and lets 
me wander friendless and alone, while he sits 
dreaming of you. I should now be a beautiful 
creature, strong and glorious, but for the care- 
lessness of one of our own German children." 
Here the little fairy began to shiver with cold, 
and the Lorelei seated him in the pink palm of 
one hand, while she curved the other over him 
like a rosy shell, and breathed upon his ragged 
little figure until he was warm again ; then she 
begged him to tell her the whole of his most 
pitiful story. 

"I suppose you know, lovely Lorelei," he 
began, " that whenever a German child is born, 
a fairy is sent to grow with him, a fairy which 
is but a tiny baby fairy as he is a tiny baby boy. 
But alas ! alas ! the fairy cannot grow without 



IN EARLY EDUCATION. 7 

the help of the child ; and although the child 
may grow tall and strong without the help of 
the fairy, it will be only strength of body which 
the child will have, for he will never be great 
and manly without his fairy, though he should 
become tall as Karl the Great, and of Karl the 
Great people still say, 'Ah ! there was a man 
with a will,' and I sometimes wish that I might 
have been his fairy companion, for then I would 
have been helped to grow, instead of being 
allowed to wander until I am lost," and the 
poor little fairy cried again ; then the Lorelei 
held the sobbing mite against her warm cheek, 
and while he cuddled within a dimple that 
looked like a rose-petal cradle, the Lorelei told 
him she would go with him to find the German 
boy to whom he belonged, but the fairy said : — 
a Ach ! I fear he will not take me, for I must 
trouble him about small things before he can do 
great ones, and he often refuses to hear me 
when I tell him to wash his hands, or properly 
dress himself ; his patient teacher is ready to 
cry with me, because he will sit dreaming of 
great men and beautiful women, when he should 



8 THE PLACE OF THE STORY 

be doing homely duties, and when he neglects 
me, I starve and shrink, and what is worse, he 
slips backward in his work, getting farther and 
farther from the great Kaiser, whom he still 
loves, and wishes to be like. Oh ! if he would 
but take me home and listen to me, he would 
grow beautiful in mind, and I should not be a 
ragged, homesick little fairy, but a very prince 
among my brothers." 

The Lorelei looked with wondering blue eyes 
at the shivering fairy, who had left the dimple 
in her cheek and was wringing his wee hands in 
grief as he stood on her ringer again. 

"Why, what are you?" she asked. 

The little arms were folded, and the tiny fairy 
stood quite erect, taking on for the moment 
some of the beauty and dignity which was his 
birthright, as he answered in clear, sweet tones : 

"I AM THAT WHICH WILLS ! " 

" Beautiful Lorelei ! I want to grow, but I 
can only grow as my companion helps me, and 
allows me to help him. I might be like Bis- 
marck's fairy, or like the good Kaiser's, but my 



IN EARLY EDUCATION. 9 

boy thinks when he ought to act ; loses himself 
in idle dreams of the Fatherland, when he ought 
to be doing something worthy of a native Ger- 
man, if it were but to tie his own shoes as well 
as Karl the Great could tie his; and then he 
bows his head and cries over his failures, instead 
of lifting his face and holding himself erect 
while he says, ' I will do these little things until 
I can do great ones,' and I, his fairy Will, grow 
weaker and smaller. Can you help me, Lor- 
elei?" and the little fairy knelt in the palm of 
her hand, while she made answer: "Take this 
drop of honey, poor little wanderer; it will 
refresh you," and she held a dewy kaiserblume 
to his lips, and when he had tasted the sweet 
honey he fell asleep, and the Lorelei wrapped 
him in her scarf, folded him upon her breast, 
and started upon a journey. Sometimes she 
swam across waters, sometimes she rested upon 
billowy clouds, and sometimes glided down 
the many-hued curve of a rainbow, but always 
her face was toward America and the German 
boy whose Will was lost ; and when she found 
him sleeping as his fairy slept, she came softly 



10 THE PLACE OF THE STORY 

through a stream of moonlight, and, bending 
over his pillow, kissed his eyes, and ever 
after they more readily sought the meaning of 
the books ; breathed softly upon his lips, and 
ever after they were more ready with song and 
with lessons; put her fingers upon his ears, 
and ever after they were more attentive to his 
teacher's words; and the fairy awoke, not on 
the bosom of the Lorelei, but in his own home 
in Ludwig's brain, where he grows more and 
more princely, and Ludwig more and more 
manly, trying hard, so very hard, to keep the 
dear little fairy on his throne. 



The effect upon his will was better than I 
dared hope. His teacher wrote me that she 
read it to him every third clay, always on 
condition of his having earned the right to 
hear it by obedience to his own good fairy Will. 
This supplied the needed stimulus for weeks in 
succession. 

I knew a 'delightful, imaginative boy of seven 
in a Western city. He seemed ideally polite and 



IN EARLY EDUCATION. 11 

obedient to his parents, so I was quite shocked 
when his mother asked if I would advise her to 
chastise him for an annoying habit in which he 
persisted ; viz., putting on his shoes and button- 
ing them every morning before putting on his 
trousers, which of course would not go on over 
the shoes ; and this daily blunder rendered him 
quite miserable as well as his parents. He 
would cry with shame and disappointment be- 
cause he missed his breakfast with his father, 
promising to try to remember, but so regularly 
forgetting that his parents began to suspect 
some latent stubbornness if not deceit in the oc- 
currence. When I left this hospitable house I 
wrote a letter to the child, who was fond of all 
military displays and stories, telling him I was 
sorry to hear that General Bad Habit was quar- 
tered in his house ; that I greatly feared my 
little friend would be reduced to the ranks if he 
did not make immediate resistance ; might he 
not use my letter as a flag of truce to be placed 
in his shoe over night, informing General Bad 
Habit that our little boy proposed not only to 



12 THE PLACE OF THE STORY 

resist him, but to take away his title, sword, 
and shoulder straps. 

The flag of truce was used in the shoe two or 
three nights, then placed on the mantel, and in 
less than a week entirely removed, and a letter 
from the triumphant child informed me that 
Bad Habit was reduced to the ranks, and my 
friend was master of the situation ! Cases 
might be indefinitely multiplied, proving the 
value of stories not only in education, but in 
discipline of the child. 

We have no right to tell stories thought- 
lessly, nor is the pleasure of the audience a 
valid test of the worth of our story. 

We have no right to isolate a story in a day's 
life ; and just here lies the power of the story 
for a child — its vital relation to other things 
in that child's life. There is no bad habit, no 
wrong tendency or weak point that may not be 
attacked or propped by a right use of the story ; 
no fact in nature or principle of right which 
may not be treated in the form of a story. 

There is some fear among the most thought- 
ful, that our age of facts and statistics, of turn- 



IN EARLY EDUCATION. 13 

ing our wheels with Jupiter's bolts, is destined 
to crush even the fancy of little children. But 
a butcher's errand boy recently asked me what 
really became of Europa after she rode into the 
sea ; he had looked the whole book through and 
was afraid Cadmus never found her. A lisping 
child of three years clasped his arms about my 
neck after a simple story, and said, " More ! 
more ! more ! " And to draw him out I said, 
"More of what?" 

And under his breath he whispered, " More of 
God." 

A child living in the shadow of one of our 
great universities drew for me a picture of God 
with head of sky, and suns for eyes, his cloud 
garments buttoned with stars. 

Need we fear ? Surely neither poetry nor 
religion will die out of our world if we permit 
a little child to trim our lamp of life. 



THE STUDY OF CHILDREN. 1 
i. 

THE CHILD A VOLUME TO BE READ. 

What we are able to do for children is measured by the 
love we bear them. — Madam Pape Carpentier. 

When the disciples disputed about precedence 
in the kingdom of heaven, the Master set a 
little child in their midst, saying, " Except ye 
become as little children, ye shall in nowise 
enter into the kingdom of heaven." And 
before dismissing the child he gave utterance 
to those wonderful, perhaps mystical words : 
" In heaven their angels do always behold the 
face of my Father which is in heaven." 

It is this volume of child-nature which I wish 
you to study with me — a volume written in 

bourse of lectures given in Detroit, Michigan. 
14 



TIIE CHILD A VOLUME TO BE READ. 15 

many languages, and often translated to suit the 
mood of the careless reader. To one woman 
her child is a comic scrap-book, and she repeats 
and remembers all he says or does that appeals 
to her own sense of humor ; to another he is 
a book of mysticism, and his simplest inquiries 
or most logical deductions are treated as prophe- 
cies or oracles ; to another he is a precious reve- 
lation of divine love and mystery ; while alas ! 
to some he is only a little animal, his playfulness 
more troublesome than the kitten's, because he 
cannot be thrust out-of-doors when he annoys, 
and his chatter more trying than the sparrows' 
of early morning because it is indoors. 

But the continuous and careful observation of 
children is in great demand, and a mother's 
opportunity is better than that of any other 
student. The work needs the scientific spirit 
and some preparatory training, but woman is 
surely equal to such a task. 

Miss Buckley is an acknowledged authority 
in one branch of science, and Caroline Herschel 
in another. Art, literature, even politics and 
the professions, are adorned with the names of 



16 THE STUDY OF CHILDREN. 

women ; but in this particular field of investiga- 
tion we have little or nothing that will stand 
the scientific test. Mothers have observed their 
own children, failed to record their observations, 
and can give us but haphazard and untrust- 
worthy accounts even of physical growth, to 
say nothing of the more complex development 
of will and intellect. That which has been 
observed and transcribed puts us under obli- 
gation to the men who have done much which 
we have left undone in the nursery. 

Plato saw a divine meaning in the plays of 
children, and did not disdain to consider the 
toys and games of children as affecting char- 
acter, and would have had no stories told the 
children that were not first examined and 
approved by legislators. 

Rousseau revolutionized society in France by 
his espousal of Baby's rights; Pestalozzi broke 
the paper chain that bound the children to 
their primers, and gave this advice to mothers : 
" Teach your children to pray, that they may be 
willing to work ; and to work that they may 
never grow tired of praying." Froebel lived 



THE CHILD A VOLUME TO BE READ. 17 

with the children, studying popular nursery 
melodies and games, with their effects upon 
mental development ; and his spirit is revo- 
lutionizing the primary schools, not only of 
Germany, but of America. Darwin has given 
us a " Sketch of an Infant " ; Sully a short 
chapter on Baby Linguistics. We are indebted 
to G. Stanley Hall for an impetus to study for 
ourselves, no less than for his valuable contribu- 
tions to the literature which is as yet so meagre 
that we can find little that is authoritative, though 
there is much which is speculative. Preyer, a 
German philosopher, has carefully observed the 
development of the senses, will, and intellect 
of his own child, giving some comparisons with 
other children coming under his notice ; and 
the book is a revelation of what we do not 
know. To make his book and Perez's " First 
Three Years of Childhood" really of the greatest 
service to us, we need enough investigation in 
the same lines for a basis of statistics. 

All this is the work of men who might cer- 
tainly excuse themselves from such effort with 
the apology which mothers will make — occupa- 



18 THE STUDY OF CHILDREN. 

tion in other directions. Women have written 
books, and many of them admirable ones, for 
children ; they have given us works on family 
government and methods of education ; but 
what have we from their graceful and ready 
pens that helps to a knowledge of earl} lan- 
guage, the imitative faculty, the rhythmic sense, 
or that period of savagery that sometimes 
enthralls even the best boys for a season ? 

Usually woman comes in much closer contact 
with children than man ; her nature fits her 
for more sympathetic interpretation of all the 
activities of childhood, and her sympathy need 
not vitiate her scientific exactitude of transcrip- 
tion ; for, like the students of child life in the 
Worcester State Normal School, she can spare 
us her own conclusions, giving the simple facts 
observed. 

We rear children, and we teach them, but 
how closely have we studied the deceptions of 
children that we may understand motives, and 
so treat the child for the cause and not for the 
symptom ? Many a conscientious mother and 
teacher knows no middle ground between a lie 



THE CHILD A VOLUME TO BE HEAD. 19 

which may be shockingly immoral and danger- 
ous to the child's soul, or harmless except as 
it is misunderstood by older people. I perfectly 
remember two lies, told in very early childhood, 
that affected my conscience very differently 
wit iut outside influence. I was sent by my 
mother to get an oak leaf for a pattern for 
needle-work, and near the oak shrub I saw a 
snake which so frightened me that I ran home 
without the leaf. My brothers met me before I 
reached my mother, and, as all snakes were 
'saugers to me, I told them I had seen a 'sauger. 
They knew a difference between snakes and 
their habits, and, boy-like, wanted to tease me, 
and said, "'twas no 'sauger — it didn't have a 
red ring around its neck, now did it?" My 
heated imagination saw just such a serpent 
as soon as their words were spoken, and I de- 
clared it had a ring about its neck. Well, they 
urged, it didn't have great scales like a fish, and 
it wasn't a 'sauger at all. I sobbed that it had 
scales, and the teasing boys added that it must 
have had a little bell on its neck then, 
and I saw the bell, the red ring, and the 



20 THE STUDY OF CHILDREN. 

scales in my imagination, and was unable to 
separate the mental picture from the real sight, 
and have to this day as vivid a mental image of 
a snake of that description as I have of any 
grass snake that ever glided across my path. I 
remember that my brothers gravely accused me 
of lying, but I did not understand them, and my 
peace of mind was undisturbed. The other lie 
was never discovered, I was never charged with 
it ; but my own moral nature, self-arraigned, 
created a cyclone of grief and terror. It was 
fear of the lie itself, for I had never been chas- 
tised, and have no recollection of the moral teach- 
ing which must have preceded it. I was very 
fond of babies, and, being the youngest of the 
family at that time, a baby cousin across the 
way received my care and affection. My mother 
had to restrain me from making myself trouble- 
some, and I could only go when my aunt ex- 
pressly wished my services. One afternoon 
mother was going away to tea, and I boldly an- 
nounced that my aunt was very busy and had 
asked me to spend an hour with the baby, to 
which my mother readily assented. I went, not 



THE CHILD A VOLUME TO BE READ. 21 

to the baby, but by a circuitous route to my 
father's barn, crept behind one of the great 
doors, which I drew as close to me as I could, 
vaguely wishing the barn and the hay-stacks 
would cover me ; there I cried and moaned, I do 
not know how many hours, and when I went to 
bed I said my prayers between sobs, refusing to 
tell my mother why I wept. We need compara- 
tive reminiscences to aid us in a study of the 
children we daily meet. Miss Elizabeth P. Pea- 
body has something valuable in this direction, 
not yet ready for publication, however, and she 
has given us some excellent psychological notes, 
but they cover a period in one child's life which 
is too brief for generalization. 

Sir John Lubbock tells us much about the 
sensitiveness of ants and bees to color ; Gra- 
ber proves that some caterpillars show strong 
color preferences. What do we know of Baby's 
color sense ? We have only lately learned that 
the majority of children of five years of age 
prefer yellow. 

There are dangers to be avoided in the obser- 
vations so much needed. Do not use pencil and 



22 THE STUDY OF CHILDREN. 

paper in the presence of the child. Keep the 
observations of each child by itself, with age, 
sex, and nationality of the child at the begin- 
ning, and the dates of succeeding observations. 
Do not repeat the child's sayings or doings in 
his presence. Do not stimulate him in the in- 
teresting and entertaining directions of growth. 
The training goes hand in hand with the 
study of the child, and we are not modelling 
in clay, nor chiselling in marble. We are not 
writing on fair white paper ; heredity has had 
the first opportunity at the page, and the 
mind is crossed and recrossed with hieroglyphic 
characters. It is our duty and our privilege 
to decipher, perhaps to erase, and to such 
study and such labor you are invited. 



II. 

PHYSICAL PHENOMENA AN ALPHABET OF 
FEELING. 

People are beginning to see that the first requisite to success 
in life is to be a good animal. — Spencer. 

Even the untutored mother responds to much 
of the natural language of her child ; mothers 
have ever crooned to their infants, patted or 
trotted them as they fancied their physical con- 
dition demanded. The nursery songs to be 
analyzed by us are those written by Froebel, or 
by pupils who have imbibed his spirit. These 
particular melodies are recommended because 
they are based upon popular nursery songs. It 
is well known to special students in this direc- 
tion that Froebel went from house to house 
among the German peasants, collecting from 
mothers, nurses, and children even, the frag- 
ments of song that have been handed down 
from mother to child for many generations ; this 



24 THE STUDY OF CHILDKEN. 

mass of material he submitted to his own keen 
but reverent criticism, culling that which was 
educational, casting out that which was delete- 
rious, giving us his revision and commentaries 
in his " Mutter und Kose Lieder." We are so 
doubtful of the practicability of new theories 
that it seems but fair to preface this study 
with the statement that these games have been 
tried by believing mothers, and skeptical fathers 
have admitted their value. 

The first one to be considered is that given 
for development of the limbs. The child lies 
upon a mattress, with legs unencumbered, and 
strikes out vigorously with his little feet. In 
earliest infancy these movements are reflex, but 
they are never meaningless ; the child wishes — 
do not confuse his vague desire with formulated 
thought — the baby lives in his feelings at first, 
and deeply rooted in this feeling is that which 
he wishes, viz. to measure his strength. He can- 
not so measure his strength unless some object is 
interposed against which he may push and kick. 
The mother may give her chest, or she may put 
a cushion between his feet and the footboard 



PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 25 

of bed or crib ; but when lie pushes those little 
feet back and forth under his petticoats, he is 
giving expression to a feeling to which mother 
or nurse should respond. The song for this 
game is adapted to German peasant life, but 
any mother can replace it with something 
equally adapted to her surroundings : — 

"Come, you little kicking toes, 
Flax and hemp we will strike with blows ; 
Oil for our lamp there flows. 
Clear it burns and clearer grows, 
When mother's love so clear and strong 
Guards little baby all night long." 

The song is of great value, but the song with- 
out the object against which the feet may be 
pressed would be of little value. Feeling lies 
deeper than thinking; the physical need fore- 
shadows the spiritual ; it is therefore no far- 
fetched conclusion that the child left to kick the 
air without this resisting force might get thereby 
a lamentable moral twist. St. Paul spoke as to 
children concerning those who seek the Lord, if 
haply they might feel after him and find him, 



26 THE STUDY OF CHILDREN. 

though he is not far from any of us. We some- 
times say, glibly enough, that the parent stands 
to the infant as God to us, and then we are 
indifferent when asked to apply this in our prac- 
tical, every-day relations with children. 

The next game is to lift the child from the 
mattress almost to the sitting posture, and, 
without removing the hands from underneath, 
so slacken the hold that the child will get an 
exhilarating shock — a brief instant of separa- 
tion from the mother's hold, and a certain re- 
turn to her loving, waiting arms. Again the 
feeling underlies the thought, and our mature 
experience should hallow this game for us and 
the children. A momentary fear that the " ever- 
lasting arms" are not underneath us, we find 
has been a high-tide moment when we review 
our lives ; and the spiritual development of the 
child is subject to the same laws as our 
own. 

As soon as the wee hand can grasp its 
mother's finger, a small worsted ball, with 
string attached, may be given the child, by 
which the muscles of the hand will be strength- 



PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 27 

ened. There are practical reasons for giving a 
ball to the child, wffich we will consider before 
the theoretical ones. He cannot hurt himself 
with the ball ; it may be dropped or flung with- 
out injury to others or to furniture; it can 
make no noise ; it may be carried to the mouth 
without injury to child or plaything. 

That the ball has been a fascinating toy, out- 
living the rattle and the Noah's ark, rests upon 
a deeper reason. There must be some subtle 
satisfaction to us in its unity ; the form lends 
itself to the laws of the physical universe more 
readily than others, or it would not be found in 
our veins as in the rivers, among the planets as 
in mechanics, revealed to us by the microscope 
no less than by the telescope. From nursery to 
university the boy carries his ball, modifying it 
to suit his needs as his skill is developed, and 
the development of skill involves mental 
growth. 

In the cradle the ball may become a centre 
of attraction, around which impressions both 
physical and spiritual may cluster. Place it in 
the little hand, and withdraw it again and again, 



28 THE STUDY OF CHILDREN. 

singing some of the Froebel ball songs, and the 
child will get its earliest vague impressions of 
the me and the not-me ; of time, present, past, 
and future, and of space. We cannot, even with 
a scientific imagination, place ourselves back of 
our formulated thought into Baby's feeling, but 
we read in his satisfied or expectant eye, Some- 
thing not me is here ; it has been here, it will 
come again. In this play do not suffer the ball 
to be withdrawn long enough to cause impa- 
tience ; and employ it but a few moments daily, 
as an educational influence, to be used with dis- 
cretion. It has proven potent in crystallizing 
thought in the brain of the feeble-minded child. 
Feeling leads to expression, and we have tried 
to deepen the one by helping the other. 

The ball has another important educational 
use. Little is really known of the significance 
of color; it has been left largely to the poet's 
realm; but Science has fixed her eye upon it, 
and we wait for her latest word. Perhaps noth- 
ing more interesting has been given us than the 
array of individual peculiarities of color percep- 
tion as furnished by Galton in his " Inquiries 



PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 29 

into the Human Faculty," for we must care 
more that some man sees the month of January 
as a blue circle, or the letters of his own name 
in various shades, than that certain caterpillars 
show a marked preference in colors; we must 
care more that the majority of little children 
recognize yellow earlier than blue than that 
earthworms and ants are unmistakably suscep- 
tible to colors, as Graber and Sir John Lubbock 
have proven. Leaving these scientific observa- 
tions, and taking the more familiar poetry of 
color, we must admit that the revelation con- 
cerning the walls of the New Jerusalem has some 
foundation in fact, or the fancy is an empty 
superstition ; that the significance attached to 
color in altar cloths and church decoration has 
something upon which to rest beside tradition, 
or it would not have survived until the present 
day. Putting aside the associations of colors 
and their possible spiritual meanings, we cannot 
ignore their physical effects. 

Some people are nauseated by certain com- 
binations of color; some have sick headache in 
consequence of inspection of shades ; people in 



30 THE STUDY OF CHILDEEN. 

normal health find it impossible to apply them- 
selves to close mental effort if the curtains of 
the room are of an annoying shade. 

Preyer's child was unmistakably impressed by 
a rose-colored curtain on the twenty-third day 
after its birth, and Preyer says : "In my obser- 
vations I have had especially in mind the promi- 
nent part played in the mental development of 
the child at the earliest period, by the sense of 
sight." 

If color appeals to the sense of sight so early, 
ought we not to take it as a valuable aid in 
early education ? and in what better form can 
we embody color than in that of the ball ? 

Passing to a later stage of development, we 
have Froebel's version of "Pat-a-cake " : — 

" Baby wants to try to make us 
Suck a cake as he can bake us. 
Pat the cake ; I'll show you how. 
Baker says, ' It's quite time now ; 
Bring the dough, as you are told, 
Ere my oven gets too cold/ 
Baker, here is a nice large cake 
You for Baby so kindly will bake. 
Deep in the oven, my little one, 
Push in your cake; it will soon be done." 



PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. dl 

With this and kindred games, the child is 
brought into conscious relations with the outside 
world, and may be given valuable impressions 
of the interdependence of mankind. We should 
not forget the moral power of stories, and we may 
closely connect with this song Dr. E. E. Hale's 
story of " Our Daily Bread." An old nursery 
tale, which I never saw in print until I adapted 
and published it in my own book of stories, im- 
presses the same lesson of interdependence. 

There is, we know, a dangerous undercurrent 
of contempt of service which mothers find 
difficult to eradicate ; it is believed that the 
wholesome use of such songs with talks about 
the baker, the miller, the farmer, and all who 
contribute to the furnishing of the bread, and 
the dependence of all these upon the Giver of 
rain and sunshine would fortify the child against 
future contempt of those who perforin for us 
any service whatsoever. 

The growing mind reaches upward ; let us 
furnish thought-centres that are above rather 
than below its grasp. We may well take the 
little child that is in our midst and reverently 
consider it. 



III. 

THOUGHT SUCCEEDING FEELING; RHYTHMIC 
SENSE AN INTELLECTUAL LEVER. 

Our aim should be to present to the mind all knowledge in 
such a way that it may help our pupils along to the undiscov- 
ered pole of human destiny. — G. Stanley Hall. 

Our strongest intellectual barks are, after all, 
safely anchored in our feelings. The baby has 
many sensations both pleasant and unpleasant 
before that mental activity which we call thought 
is unmistakably begun, for we are not of the 
" intueetion folks who will have it that a babby's 
got as much mind as Mr. Gladstone, ef it only 
knew it." 

The reasoning process, however, is well estab- 
lished before the baby can put his thoughts into 
words. 

Preyer noticed an indisputable acoustic ex- 
periment in a child less than a year old. The 
child struck with a spoon upon a plate, acci- 

32 



THOUGHT SUCCEEDING FEELING. 33 

dentally touching the plate with the other hand 
at the same time, thus dulling the sound ; the 
plate and spoon changed hands, and the effect of 
the opposite hand was tried upon the plate, the 
child listening expectantly, and repeating the 
experiment many times. Any observer, even 
the most careless, must have noticed a child's 
eager inquiry into causality, following with his 
eye the string from which a ball is suspended to 
the point of suspension ; looking for the moving 
hand or figure which casts a shadow, or for the 
person whose voice is heard from another room. 
The crying of a child to be taken out when he 
sees his cap and cloak shows that he has drawn 
some logical conclusions from past experience. 
It is only by observation of the child and his 
expressions that we can arrive at certain knowl- 
edge of his capacities. We may know some 
general laws of development, but there is such a 
wide difference between cases that the need of 
special study of the individual will probably 
never be less urgent, although more definite 
knowledge of general rules will be of great 
service. 



34 THE STUDY OF CHILDREN. 

We shall now consider the rhythmic sense, in- 
herent in all children, and its importance as an 
intellectual lever. We know that the outer 
forces of nature are subject to a law of rhythm ; 
there seems the throb of a pulse in fire, and a 
steady rise and fall of sound in the cataract of 
Niagara ; the cyclone moves under a law of 
time that we practically observe, calculating its 
progress and preparing for its arrival ; a law of 
harmony governs the planets in their courses, so 
that " the music of the spheres " is not merely a 
figure of speech; our hearts beat with such 
rhythm that any departure from its regularity 
gives us great alarm. Something in the child's 
nature corresponds to that outward harmony, 
so that rhythm calls unto rhythm, as deep unto 
deep. This explains why the child is hushed by 
rhythmic movement, which need not be voiced, 
as we daily see in the nursery, where the child 
is patted, swayed in the arms, or rocked instinc- 
tively " in time." Every nurse feels that a 
sudden stopping of the swing of the cradle would 
startle the baby. Nor do we outgrow this 
pleasure in rhythmic movement. Sing, if you 



THOUGHT SUCCEEDING FEELING. 35 

please, a few bars of any familiar air, agreeing 
to stop instantly at a signal from another, and 
let the signal come before the musical pause is 
reached, and your own disagreeable sensation 
will bear witness to that inner sense which 
should not be rudely jarred. 

We see that the mother's instinct leads her to 
sing to the child, and to give him rhythmic 
movements ; but we need an intellectual and 
moral power added to the physical one, and this 
is found in some of the songs recommended. 
Every child is strongly attracted to the sound 
and the movement of the clock pendulum. A 
little talk about the clocks that told the wrong 
time brought the attention of an untruthful 
child to truthfulness, and, without a word from 
the outside as to his habit, the child, though but 
four years old, would blush and correct himself, 
on beginning a false statement, when his teacher 
glanced ruefully at the clock, which became a 
symbol of truth to him. 

If we attend to the things which command the 
child's interest, we may find in them many an 
aid to good government. By a little study we 



36 THE STUDY OF CHILDREN. 

may abstract from many things the one point of 
interest — as, for instance, the life in the flight 
of birds, in the movement of fish, and in the cat 
or dog, is undoubtedly that which attracts the 
child ; there is no life without movement, and no 
movement which is not subject to the rhythmic 
law. If, therefore, we intelligently use this law, 
we gain something in the increasingly difficult 
business of home management. 

Preyer's baby noticed the ticking of a clock 
on the one hundred and first day of its life. I 
showed a clock pendulum to a child nine 
months old, and, taking his hand in mine, 
moved it back and forth in time with the pendu- 
lum, singing one of the tick-tack songs : — 

" Come and see, come and see 
How merrily the clock doth go. 
The pendulum swings to and fro, 
And never from its plan doth go ; 
Swings first to the left and then to the right, 
All the day and all the night, 
Tick-tack, tick-tack, tick-tack." 

This was repeated three or four times in one 
day ; the following day, when he heard the air, 



THOUGHT SUCCEEDING FEELING. 37 

he turned his face to the clock, and on the third 
day moved his own hand on hearing the words 
sung, looking wishfully at the clock. 

I gave my watch to a baby six months old, 
and she carried it to her mouth ; I took her 
hand in mine and carried the watch to her ear, 
then to mine, repeating this many times, and 
on letting go of her hand she continued the 
movement with evident pleasure, although she 
sometimes made irregular movements toward 
her mouth, from muscular habit. Her mother 
joined the game, and the baby's hand was 
directed by mine to her ear, then to my own, 
and lastly to the child's. A few successive 
times and the child was soon able to make this 
circuit, but before she was tired, or had satisfied 
herself with her new power, the mother turned 
her ear away from the proffered hand, and 
seized the watch in her own mouth ; which so 
enraged the baby investigator that the pretty 
and useful play was interrupted by angry shrieks, 
which perhaps amused the mother as much as 
any other exhibition of her child's nature ; but 
to the thoughtful person it seems like a stupid 



38 THE STUDY OF CHILDREN". 

interference in an intellectual pursuit, and a prov- 
ocation to anger, which, if frequently repeated, 
would demoralize a child. 

There are a few songs in which the rhythm is 
so strongly marked that they are of great value 
in rousing the child's intellectual activities. 
"The Mill," "See-Saw," "The Carpenter," 
" Shoemaker," and " Blacksmith," have proven 
most helpful. In the Boston School for Feeble- 
minded, the children in the kindergarten have 
an especial liking for the " Blacksmith," which 
struck me as remarkably coinciding with the 
tastes of feeble-minded children under my own 
observation ; the rhythm and the open vowel 
sounds of the chorus (" Strike, boys ! strike, boys, 
while the iron is red hot ") furnish some children 
their first opportunity of enunciation, and, like 
other children, they rejoice in every acquire- 
ment. I went from child to child as they were 
singing and gesticulating, and all were gleefully 
uttering, " i oy, i oy, i i ed ot." Marching songs 
are also valuable aids in mental development. I 
took a feeble-minded child of six years and nine 
months in my arms, marching to and fro while 



THOUGHT SUCCEEDING FEELING. 3D 

I sang little marching airs, stopping long enough 
between songs for her to get an impression of 
the difference between moving and standing, and 
it was but a few days before she began to make 
rhythmical noises as we marched, and in a short 
time she was able to walk with the aid of my 
hand to steady her movements, although she 
had never before been roused to any desire 
for walking. With the help of these and kin- 
dred aids her will has been roused to hopeful 
activity, and she not only acts in response to 
her will, but has arrived at some healthful in- 
hibitions. 

There is room for much study of the sensibility 
of children to music ; the effect of minor tones 
upon children has only been noticed in isolated 
cases. I lately saw a baby of three months that 
would put up its lip in most pathetic fashion 
when his father said, " Poor little boy ! poor 
little boy ! " in a mournful tone, and if the 
father continued, tears would fill the child's eyes ; 
but tears gave place to laughter when the tone 
was changed and the father said, " Happy little 
boy ! happiest little boy in Detroit ! " The same 



40 THE STUDY OF CHILDREN. 

child is perceptibly affected by certain airs upon 
the piano-forte. 

Observations carefully written out, with age, 
sex, and nationality of child, would have a psy- 
chological value. The age at which a child 
becomes able to keep 'time with hands, feet, or 
head, with the history of its failures, would be 
of more than family interest, and it is only by 
many such transcribed observations that we can 
arrive at any knowledge which has scientific 
value. 



V 



IV. 

FINGER SONGS RELATED TO FAMILY LIFE AND 
THE IMAGINATIVE FACULTY. 

The understanding is not a vessel that needs filling ; it is a 
fuel that needs kindling. — Plutarch. 

Herr Schulte observed a child that looked 
attentively at its own hands in the sixteenth 
week of its life. I remember a child that used 
its thumb and forefinger with amusing deftness 
at nine months of age. How long he had done 
this when I observed him his mother could not 
tell. It seems strange that this universally 
interesting period in the child's development 
has not been observed with accuracy, or re- 
corded, so that we may find the average age of 
the normal child's first notice of his fingers and 
toes. Some mothers think children observe their 
hands at the age of six weeks, and I have seen 
a child of six years who had not yet reached 
that stage of mental development. 

41 



42 THE STUDY OF CHILDREN. 

The chick just from its shell can pick up its 
food with unerring strokes of its tiny beak; the 
lamb has the use of its legs the first day of its 
life, the young animal having an inheritance of 
muscular power quite in excess of that of a 
child. But the glorious birthright of man is 
self-developing power. 

A little observation teaches us the individu- 
ality of the hand. People who carefully train 
the face to immobility, and pride themselves 
upon allowing the features to tell no tales of 
passing feeling, often betray many emotions 
through unconscious attitudes and gestures of 
the hands. Dr. Warner gives an entire chapter 
in his book, " The Children : How to Study 
Them," to the importance of these unconscious 
habits of hand position and motion. Much may 
be known of physical conditions from the man- 
ner of using the hands, and physical conditions 
are often, if not always, closely interwoven with 
mental and even spiritual life. 

Dr. E. H. Clarke, in " Building of a Brain," 
demonstrates that brain power depends largely 
upon activity of the hands, and ambidexterity 



FIKGEK SONGS. 43 

is now cultivated with direct reference to its 
value in this direction. One of the strongest 
arguments in favor of manual training is the 
benefit to the brain in such practice. 

Le Conte, in " Evolution and Its Relation to 
Religious Thought," speaks of the recent start- 
ling advances made in physiology, and speculates 
concerning future developments in this direction, 
saying that we may find a right-handed rotation 
of atoms associated with love, and a left-handed 
rotation associated with hate, or a gentle, side- 
ways oscillation associated with consciousness, 
and a vertical pounding associated with will. 
The hands of the Venus de Medici, Diana, and 
the Dying Gladiator furnish examples of various 
attributes wrought in marble. In literature we 
have perhaps nothing more characteristic than 
Silas Lapham's hairy paw, and its resemblance, 
when gloved, to a yellow-cased, sugar-cured 
ham. Delsarte emphasizes the hand as a means 
of expression. Clara Morris, in " Miss Multon," 
makes one scene almost tragic by the interlacing 
of her fingers as she stands with her back to 
the audience, uttering no word, but, with hands 



44 THE STUDY OP CHILDREN. 

clenched behind her, and face probably smiling 
upon her tormentor, she gives marvellous expres- 
sion to the agony of her soul. One can never 
forget Booth's finger interpretation of Hamlet's 
suppressed passion in the scene with Guilden- 
stern, while his more eloquent lips declare : 
" Call me what instrument you will, though 
you can fret me, you cannot play upon me." 

Salvini's hands made his Italian Othello 
almost as easily understood as if it had been 
rendered in our native tongue. 

We must remember that the child's hand is 
an instrument of which he has to learn the use 
by a very complicated and slow process. We 
may help him to the highest use of it, or leave 
him to blunder even in mechanical skill with it. 
When he first becomes conscious of possession 
of hands, we may wisely introduce some of 
Froebel's finger games, which strengthen the 
muscles and aid in deftness of hand, while the 
mind is directed to the family relations as repre- 
sented by the fingers. Taking the little thumb 
and each finger successively, we may sing : — 



FINGER SONGS. 45 

"This is the grand-papa, 
This is the grand-mamma, 
This is the father dear, 
This is the mother dear, 
This is the little child — 
See all the family here." 

This game helps the child in differentiating 
his fingers, brings him back to the unity of all 
— many fingers and one hand — as there are 
many individuals and one family in his little 
world. The dawning consciousness of the child 
so turned to the family relations is surely better 
than the old nursery method of playing " This 
little pig went to market." The superiority, 
even from the physical side of the songs, is imme- 
diately seen, the fingers being destined to more 
important work than the toes, therefore needing 
more attention to the development of flexibility. 
The particularly meretricious nursery song — 
" This little pig said, I'm going to grandpa's 
barn" — should not pass unnoticed. In this we 
have boastfulness, curiosity, proposed theft, tale- 
bearing, and defeated effort on the part of the 
smallest pig, who cries with grief because of his 



46 THE STUDY OF CHILDREN. 

lack of strength. Do not imagine these things 
never stir the deep spiritual fountains of child 
nature — they certainly do. 

The early power of a mother's example can 
hardly be overrated ; on her depends much of 
the child's future estimate of the sacredness of 
the family relations. If every man could truth- 
fully give such an account of home harmony as 
Ruskin pictures in his little autobiographical 
sketch, we should soon have the millennium. 
We are ready to admit that daily life sinks 
deeper than maxims ; but we are apt to forget 
it, especially when the little children are our 
only observers. We agree with Carlyle that 
what we are is more than what we say; and 
then we live according to our inclinations, and 
hope to see the children do better than we do 
because we advise them well. Truly, there is 
need, in many quarters, of less good talk and 
more right action. 

If teachers need harmony in all their rela- 
tions with associates and subordinates in order 
to make their work effectual, how much more 
the mother needs to live in an atmosphere of 



FINGER SONGS. 47 

charity in every branch of the home life ! Bet- 
ter that she should suffer an indignity, a cruel 
wound to her self-respect, the word that cuts 
like a sword, or exasperates like a pin-prick — 
better to suffer all these in dignified self-repres- 
sion than that a little child should catch a note 
of discord in the home life. A mother must be 
to her mother what she would have her child be 
to her. 

A poor woman went one day to the kinder- 
garten, where she heard her little girl singing, 
"This is the mother good and dear," with lov- 
ing glances at the tiny thumb, which became to 
her, for the moment, the ideal mother ; and the 
woman, overcome with self-reproaches, left the 
room in tears. The teacher, following her to 
offer sympathy in any case of home trouble, was 
surprised at the hurried and sobbing confession : 
" I am not a good mother ; oh, I am not a good 
mother, and my little girl hioivs I am not ! 
What shall I do ? " It is hardly necessary to 
tell that the self-accused mother became the self- 
reforming woman, and another family is strug- 
gling to make the home what it should be. 



48 THE STUDY OF CHILDREN. 

Introducing the child to the outer world by 
means of linger plays is also wise. Holding the 
left hand up with the closed right hand covered 
by it, one may sing, as the fingers of the left 
hand spring erect : — 

"My pigeon house I open wide, 

And set all the happy pigeons free. 
They fly o'er the fields on every side, 

And light on the tallest tree. 
But when they return from their merry flight, 
We'll shut the door and say good-night. 

Coo-roo, coo-roo, coo-roo, coo-roo, 

Coo-roo, coo-roo, coo-roo, coo-roo." 

The fingers of the right hand flutter about, and 
lightly rest on the head, as on a tree, returning 
to the pigeon house as indicated by the words. 
Another valuable finger song is this : — 

"See the fishes in the brook, 
Sinking, rising — look, look, look ! 
Now they are straight and now they bend, 
Their merry playing has no end. 
See how within the shallow stream 
The merry little fishes gleam. 
See how they dart along the ground, 
Chasing each other around and round, 
Chasing each other around and round." 



FINGER SONGS. 49 

In this the words themselves describe the 
motions. A very effective story can be made 
from the material of these songs. The birds 
invite the fishes to come up to their nests, but 
the fishes decline because they cannot fly ; but 
as the birds can walk, they are asked to come 
down to the bottom of the brook, but they can- 
not do that, as they are made to live in the air ; 
and after a happy hour of chatter and grateful 
comparison of mutual advantages, birds and 
fishes agree that air is good for wings, fins for 
water, and the little boy who hears the dialogue 
rejoices that he lives in home love, and needs 
neither wings nor fins. 

Through these and like songs I helped a 
feeble-minded child of six years to her first 
observation of her fingers, which was soon fol- 
lowed by an attempt to use the thumb and fore- 
finger in conjunction. 

With the most scrupulous care on the part of 
the most conscientious mother, it often happens 
that very young children acquire dangerous 
habits of the hands. Vicious tendencies, quite 
improbable if not impossible, are often ascribed 



50 THE STUDY OF CHILDREN. 

to the child, and remedies almost as hurtful as 
the disorder are sometimes used. These games 
are found admirable in the correction of such 
habits ; the child that sucks its thumb refusing 
herself that luxury when the thumb is put to 
sleep with the song given above. 

The imagination of the child is healthfully 
stimulated by these games, and through his 
imagination his will may be strengthened in 
right directions — for we are learning that self- 
will and self-direction are good for the child. 



V. 

SONGS AND GAMES FOR THE CULTIVATION OF 

THE SENSES: THEIR RIGHT USE AND 

THEIR DANGERS. 

May you give bread to men ; but my aim shall be to give 
men to themselves. — Froebel. 

Certain fruits and grains deteriorate if left to 
nature, and many a weed becomes a lovely plant 
by the slow processes of cultivation. Preyer 
says that before a sure sign of will, of memory, 
judgment, inference in the proper sense, is found, 
the feelings have expressed themselves in direct 
connection with the first excitations of the 
nerves of sense. Carpenter's " Mental Physi- 
ology" treats the senses with a dignity which 
deepens the impressiveness of the Biblical asser- 
tion that our bodies are the temples of the liv- 
ing God. 

In past times, and in isolated cases of our 
own day, man, feeling his way Godward, found, 

51 



52 THE STUDY OF CHILDREN. 

as he thought, a hindrance in the senses ; to 
crucify the flesh was therefore thought not only 
an act of devotion, but a means of spiritual 
growth, and the words of Agassiz, "A physical 
fact is as sacred as a moral principle," could 
hardly have been written by a man in the six- 
teenth century. A late writer on the problem 
of evil says : " As the senses are the necessary 
feeders of the intellect, so the appetites are the 
necessary nourishers of our highest moral sen- 
timents. And yet the struggle for mastery 
of the higher spiritual with the lower animal is 
often so severe that the latter seems to many 
an essential evil to be extirpated, instead of a 
useful servant to be controlled. 

All that we call evil, both in the material 
and the spiritual world, is good so long as we 
hold it in subjection as servants to the spirit, 
and only becomes evil when we succumb. All 
evil consists in the dominance of the lower over 
the higher ; all good in the rational use of the 
lower by the higher. It is only by action and 
reaction of all parts of our complex nature that 
true virtue is attained." With this view of the 



SONGS AND GAMES. 53 

senses and appetites we may well advocate culti- 
vation, which involves the use of the harrow and 
pruning-knife as well as good seed. 

The first evil that threatens the baby is glut- 
tony. Nature left to herself is an unsafe guide ; 
first sensations of discomfort are allayed by feed- 
ing, and the child would apply this sovereign 
remedy for all ailments and discomforts. Some- 
times the mother uses as little judgment as the 
child, and relief for an over-full stomach is 
sought in more feeding, with a ridiculous appli- 
cation of " similia similibus curantur." Children 
of but three years of age are sometimes little 
gormancls, whose best correction might be found 
in the careful - use of Froebel's Taste Songs. 
Through these the child may be led to classifi- 
cation of edibles into nuts, fruits, vegetables, etc. 
Talk about the processes of growth or manu- 
facture will prevent the game from deteriorating 
into mere eating. 

A hasty glance even, into an encyclopedia 
will furnish the basis for fascinating stories of a 
lump of sugar, history of an orange, adventures 
of a cocoanut ; and the child may soon be led to 



54 THE STUDY OF CHILDREN. 

telling the story of the material tasted, and will 
naturally forget the grosser side of eating in 
such investigation of the processes of nature and 
art in the production of his food. 

Smell, that more delicate sense so closely 
allied to taste, may also be utilized in classifi- 
cation — and the educational value of classifica- 
tion is well known. 

In tasting, we destroy the form of that upon 
which we act ; but we enjoy the smell of the 
rose, and the rose is not destroyed, though it is 
by a process of dissolution that the flower gives 
up its odor : an early interest in botany may be 
awakened by this game. The sense of smell is 
claimed by some to be more closely related to 
the spiritual life than the other senses ; we are 
perhaps too forgetful of the ministrations to a 
higher life which this refined sense affords. By 
the law of association the sweet-brier that per- 
fumed our playroom when we were children, or 
the favorite flower of some departed friend, 
becomes a power in our lives. The locust blos- 
som, the wild violet, the golden-rod, by their 
fragrance may recall a hallowed hour or place. 



SONGiS AND GAMES. 55 

Perhaps not one reader of this but will have her 
own tender thoughts in this connection, thoughts 
which lift her heavenward not only in feeling, 
but control many an action of her life, for which 
she is debtor to the subtle sense of smell. 

The child with covered eyes guesses the name 
of a flower by its distinctive odor, and led by 
the sons; takes care of the flower which has 
ministered to his pleasure, instead of casting it 
aside to wither and fade when his enjoyment of 
it has passed. 

That the sense of touch may also tell us the 
names of objects and persons may be taught by 
blindfolding the child while his hands discover 
the secret. A very nice sense of. touch may 
thus be acquired. 

For the cultivation of the ear a charming 
game is provided. A child stands in the middle 
of the room blindfolded, while others march 
around him, singing. At the tap of a stick a 
child steps behind the guesser, singing alone a 
part of the song, and the blindfolded one 
guesses from the voice who it is. Children 
become marvellously quick in recognizing tones 



56 THE STUDY OF CHILDREN. 

in this way, and any kindergarten where this 
game has been played a few months will put to 
the blush the same number of older people who 
wish to try it, unless they have had similar 
training. There are some popular games of this 
nature played by young girls that are vulgar in 
the extreme. I saw not long since, at a chil- 
dren's party, a game involving the same princi- 
ple, but worked out in a coarse manner. There 
was no singing, but the girl designated grunted 
in a swinish manner, her name being guessed 
by this vocal expression. The girls very readily 
accepted the suggestion of a prettier way of 
playing the same game — another proof of the 
ease with which the games as well as the 
studies of children may be directed by a sym- 
pathetic older person. 

For the very little ones, who find the above 
game too complicated, the simple call of 
" cuckoo ! cuckoo ! cuckoo ! " may be substi- 
tuted, the blindfolded child directing its steps 
toward the sound ; even the handkerchief may 
be omitted for the toddler, the singer secreting 
herself behind a door or armchair. 



SONGS AND GAMES. 57 

There is a theory, not yet fully tested, that a 
disorder of the ear exists, corresponding to 
color-blindness, or possibly to near-sightedness. 
My own investigations in the public schools of 
Boston under the direction of an eminent aurist, 
Dr. Clarence Blake, certainly prove the existence 
of a disorder of the ear, but its exact nature is 
not yet known. 

If the disorder is curable, such training of the 
ear as these games involve must be of great 
value. 

Perhaps it is not generally known that a child 
learns to see by a slow process, as he learns to 
walk. Some parents and teachers attribute the 
incorrect estimates of things seen to lack of judg- 
ment, but it is no doubt true that for a long 
period the child sees but dimly, or only in out- 
lines ; this would partially explain his keen 
enjoyment of crude drawings. A child once 
drew a mouse for me with one stroke of his pen- 
cil and a dot ; the long curved line represented 
the tail, and the dot the eye of the mouse, and 
he was perfectly satisfied with his representation 
of what he had seen. 



58 THE STUDY OF CHILDREN. 

Recognition of various qualities and objects 
by sight is a game which may be made of great 
physical and intellectual value. A small num- 
ber of objects, the number to be increased as the 
child's ability improves, may be placed in a bas- 
ket covered with a napkin ; give the child a 
peep under the napkin, and then ask him what 
he has seen. Memory and language must now 
be brought into requisition, and in this simple 
play, sensation, perception, memory, language, 
and will are involved. The complexity of the 
game may be increased as the child is able, by 
adding to the objects their number, color, form, 
and material. 

The same purpose may be accomplished by 
varying the game, holding the objects in the 
hand, or making pictures on a board, removing 
a screen for a moment's observation. Another 
excellent aid to sight recognition is found in 
timing a child at a window, giving him five 
minutes for seeing as many things as he can in 
the time allotted ; he may name them as he sees 
them at first, but he will soon enjoy the memory 
game connected with it. 



SONGS AND GAMES. 59 

A child whose senses are thus cultivated is in 
small danger of thinking too much about him- 
self, for he is drawn to observation of the world 
outside and to an appreciative interest in the 
processes of nature and the wonders of man's 
mechanical skill, and if he does not look rever- 
ently from created things toward the Creator, it 
will be because he is turned aside by those who 
are guiding him. 

Observation and transcription of intellectual 
development through cultivation of the senses 
is much needed. 



VI. 

NATURAL PHENOMENA RELATED TO THE 
SPIRITUAL LIFE OF THE CHILD. 

Children marvel at the phenomena of nature, while grown 
people often think themselves too wise to wonder. — Alex. 
Bratjn. 

Some years since, under the direction of Dr. 
G. Stanley Hall, I made some studies of the no- 
tions of little children concerning natural phe- 
nomena. Their ideas were a revelation to me. 
They thought the sky was made of bricks, that 
it was wall-paper, that it was the floor of heaven. 
I found an attenuated, half-dressed little boy of 
five years at the North End in Boston, whose 
face glowed with eager anticipation when he 
told me that he expected to help God make 
thunder when he should get to heaven ; and on 
being questioned how it was done, he answered 
that they kicked balls around there. Some chil- 
dren thought the thunder was God hammering 

60 



NATURAL PHENOMENA. 61 

out other worlds. Note the likeness between 
this conception of noisy creative activity and 
the ancient ideas of Vulcan and the Norse beliefs 
concerning Loki and his occupations. Their 
thoughts about lightning showed the same vari- 
ations, according to the child's individuality and 
environment : to one it was " God pointing his 
finger at me " ; to another it was God opening 
the door of heaven to look out. To some chil- 
dren the clouds were lace curtains between us 
and heaven. Is there anything more graceful 
than that in the Greek mythology ? A child of 
four years, being asked one rainy day where the 
rain came from, answered, as if it had been long 
settled in his mind, that the ice-carts up there 
were leaking. 

Country children have superior advantages in 
their nearness to earth and sky, but no lovelier 
conception could be found in a child's mind than 
that of a boy at the North End, who had never 
seen the Common or Garden, and lived at the 
top of one of the crowded tenements in that 
dreary region. He said, with radiant though 
dirty face, that there were many diamonds in 



62 THE STUDY OF CHILDREN. 

heaven, and he should have some to play with 
when he got there ; on being questioned as to 
where he had ever seen any diamonds, he an- 
swered, " In a window on Tremont Row, and on 
a patch of grass in Miss Maloney's yard, some- 
times real early in the morning ! " Rain nearly 
always represented to these children some activ- 
ity of God. He was sprinkling his garden, 
upsetting buckets, turning the faucets, etc. 

The sun, moon, and stars were usually personi- 
fied ; some thought them bright beings — men, 
women, or angels that walk, fly, or run in heaven 
or in the sky, God holding them by the hand or 
they would fall. A child whose feet were stained 
with blue stockings told his mother some of the 
sky must have fallen down and he had stepped 
in it. Like the ancient Greek, the child projects 
his life and his love into the starry firmament. 
It is a subject for grave thought that to the little 
child the heavens and the earth are a unit, and 
that unit includes the law of love — love typified 
by the family relations. If we could remember 
that " the spirit of God moves upon the child's 
spirit as the ocean sways the seaweed," then we 



NATURAL PHENOMENA. 63 

should begin the lesson indicated by the Master 
when he placed the child in the midst of the 
bickering crowd and bade the disciples to con- 
sider it. 

Let us examine the symbolism in which the 
child lives. We express ourselves through sym- 
bols, our thoughts often refusing the small- 
clothes of words that do not have sufficiently 
expansive meanings. We do not reach an intel- 
lectual plane where we lay aside symbols; the 
most exact scientists are forced to use them, the 
language of chemistry even being a language of 
poetry when we put it word by word to a critical 
test. Tyndall, in his " Scientific Uses of the 
Imagination/' warmly defends the groundwork 
of symbolism. If we of maturer years are so 
dependent upon symbols, both in intellectual and 
spiritual growth, shall we not look for a like, 
and even greater, need in the undeveloped life 
of the child ? 

The child sees men and women, fathers, moth- 
ers, and children, in the stars ; they are there by 
comparison. Out of comparison the child ar- 
rives at abstraction, and from abstraction the 



64 THE STUDY OF CHILDREN. 

child grasps the Infinite. He does not study his 
process of growth — all healthy growth is per- 
haps unconscious ; but the family lives in and 
by love ; love is the element in which the stars 
exist. Mother-love leads to God-love, and the 
child climbs from his mother's arms beyond the 
stars, finally reaching the abstract knowledge 
that only that which is a reflection of God will 
abide eternally, and that which reflects spirit is 
spirit. There is a significance in the child's de- 
sire to reach the stars which we would better 
gravely consider than to laugh at, either thought- 
lessly or contemptuously. The soul that holds 
its aspirations in spite of all temporary and tem- 
poral hindrances will as assuredly find its way 
back to God as the stars move in their appointed 
ways. 

The material world we believe to be a mani- 
festation of the Creative Thought, and as we 
study the material world we are impressed with 
the many-sided glimpses of that Creative 
Power which it affords us. We climb toward 
God's thought on stepping-stones of material 
things, up, up among the forces which seem 



NATURAL PHENOMENA. 65 

• 

nearer and nearer the spiritual, until we find 
ourselves in the light which reveals Him to our 
spirits, and nothing in His created world is ever 
again common or unclean. 

The delight of the baby in glancing sunbeams 
has a cause as sure and universal as the delight. 
The child that will shudder and cry at sight of 
shadows on the wall will clap its hands and 
laugh when the prism sends its rainbow colors 
dancing through the room. Light has ever been 
a symbol of good. In the Norse mythology the 
gods dwelt in the light of Asgard, while the 
dwarfs worked in dark caves. In their best 
moments men have ever turned to the contem- 
plation or worship of light. It has been the 
god of the child of the race. The Hebrews 
kept the sacred shekinah burning upon their 
altars day and night. It might be thought that 
science would rob the light of its spiritual sig- 
nificance ; but so much stronger are spiritual 
meanings than we can comprehend, that an 
essay of Tyndall's upon sun rays lifts one 
from the contemplation of natural forces to 
spontaneous worship of the Source of truth 
and life- 



66 THE STUDY OF CHILDREN. 

Scientists, like the prophets of old, speak with 
deeper meaning than they know. Thoughts 
concerning the light, from Milton, from Goethe, 
from Dante, flutter about us like birds, and we 
feel that man would have found God by the 
single ladder of light had he been left with no 
other revelation ; but revelation addressed to 
the feeling which underlies knowledge gives us 
the sense of unity without and within, above 
and below, as we listen to its voice, " I am the 
light," " Walk in the light." 

Froebel's song of the Light-bird, and of the 
moon and stars, will help the mother to feel the 
divine fire in her own heart which seeks all its 
dark places with, its illuminating power, burn- 
ing out unworthy aims, causing her to avoid 
secrecy, and to cultivate truthfulness not only 
of speech but of action in all her relations 
with her child, whereby they will tread upon 
the adder of evil, and together hasten the 
coming of the day which shall need no light 
of sun, moon, or stars, for God will give the 
light. 



VII. 

THE DULL CHILD THE WISE MAN'S PROBLEM. 

I know so much I hardly know myself. — Five-year-old 
Boy. 

We may watch the dawn of thought in a 
young child and learn lessons which are hidden 
from us in the larger volume of the mature 
mind. In its unconsciousness of the possession 
of mental faculties it presents to the philosopher 
unequalled advantages for study. A retentive 
memory does not make a bright child ; I have 
seen a case of unimprovable feebleness of mind 
where dates were so retained in the memory 
that the child was a prodigy studied by univer- 
sity men. Quickness in computation is not an 
indication of brightness of intellect; abnormal 
ability in this direction may exist in a mind 
quite incapable of effort in other directions. 
Speeches that are usually accepted as indications 
of acuteness in children will not oftefi bear the 

67 



68 THE STUDY OF CHILDREN. 

test of candid analysis. A boy of five years 
begged for a sister, and was told to wait until 
babies were cheaper ; he had a ticket for an en- 
tertainment on which he found the usual " chil- 
dren for half price/' and ran to his mother to 
demand the promised sister, as they were now 
selling children at half price. We laugh at this 
as if the child were consciously witty, but the 
statement was, to his mind, as free from humor, 
and his acceptance of it as serious, as in scores 
of cases in which he would have been rebuked 
for lack of common sense. We know that 
children do not see the occasion for laughter 
in half the things we account funny. We are 
sometimes as cruel in our merriment as at others 
we are unjust in our blame. 

A degree of absent-mindedness sometimes 
accompanies a depth of thought which is quite 
precocious ; we must religiously guard our ex- 
pressions of blame in the presence of these 
children. 

On the street my attention was once drawn 
to a knot of boys ten or twelve years old, one of 
whom proved to possess remarkable mechanical 



THE DULL CHILD. • 69 

skill. Having a paper that admitted me to any 
school in the city for purposes of investigation, 
I went to his department to study the case. 
His teacher asked how I happened to select him 
from among others in her room, as she was not 
aware that he had any especial ability. The 
particulars of his development were referred to 
Dr. G. Stanley Hall, who said some memorable 
words that should be written upon the walls of 
every schoolroom : " Tread softly here ; you 
may be in the presence of genius." The point 
to be noted is, that a boy of unmistakable indi- 
viduality, and of such peculiarity as to draw 
from a philosopher a remark like that, was, in 
the eyes of his teacher, quite an average boy. 
The teacher might have looked daily into the 
mysteries of this mind but for the stultifying 
pressure of grade work too commonly forced 
upon teachers. In our studies in primary 
schools we found that the children accounted 
bright were those who were quick in number 
lessons. The children accounted dull were those 
who were shy and slow of speech. ; but these 
were they who held those beautiful notions of 



70 THE STUDY OF CHILDREN. 

the heavenly bodies, and those airy imaginings 
about the clouds ; children who were uncom- 
municative without being sullen, who thought 
their own thoughts, losing their way in " tables " 
because they were wandering in a region where 
it made no difference whether two and two make 
four or five. 

A child of abnormal mentality was placed in 
my kindergarten at the age of three ; she would 
not look at other children, did not notice music 
nor take the brightest toy in her hands, and 
showed no pleasure even in sweet tastes. She 
found amusement in tearing her aprons from 
hem to neck, but would take no substitute of 
old calico, and showed no gleam of satisfaction 
when she found a thin place for a starting-point ; 
she even did this in a listless fashion, and not 
as a regular occupation. After some months of 
this stupor she accepted a box of beads, looked 
at bright balls and sometimes at the children 
when their movements were uncommonly rapid ; 
at the end of a year she would walk if urged 
and supported by both hands. In the second 
year she developed some skill with her fingers 



THE DULL CHILD. 71 

and much interest in the games, but she was 
subject to violent outbursts of temper, the causes 
of which could seldom be discovered. She was 
spiteful toward children and teachers alike, and 
after a passionate outbreak was not sunny, but 
unusually quiet, the rousing of mental activity 
seeming to culminate in a burst of wrath, during 
which she would scratch and bite, and then sub- 
side into quiet which was due to exhaustion 
rather than to penitence. This stage of devel- 
opment lasted six months or more, and one day 
the teachers looked at each other in surprise, 
one inquiring, " When has J. been in one of her 
tempers ? " The day could not be recalled ; the 
days of wrath had passed away and a new era 
dawned. J. became the most trusted care-taker 
of the little ones ; she never tired of helping the 
smallest children with wraps and rubbers, and 
would walk half a mile to restore a veil to some 
careless child ; her remarks were quaint and full 
of humor, and she became to us a most com- 
panionable child. She brought her doll daily, 
taking beautiful care of it and its clothes. She 
was retained three years in the kindergarten, 



72 THE STUDY OF CHILDREN". 

and in the last year she was untiring in her 
efforts to master both ideas and things. She is 
now in grammar school, among the first in her 
class, slow to grasp but sure to hold ideas, and 
has shown marked musical ability ; her hands, 
so slow in skill, are remarkably beautiful, com- 
bining strength with flexibility. She has ex- 
celled pupils of her age in piano-forte lessons, 
her teacher telling me she is an uncommonly prom- 
ising pupil. I was often assured that she was 
an idiot when she first came to the kinder- 
garten. 

But there are dull children ? Doubtless ; but 
the most hopelessly dull are the scatter-brained 
ones who catch and toss words, and facts even, 
from tongue-tips without turning them over in 
their own minds. 

But it is the feeble-minded children that I 
wish to commend to your thoughtful consider- 
ation ; and let us acknowledge our indebtedness 
to these unfortunate children, who furnish us 
with laws of mental development in large type. 
The normal processes of mind are so rapid that 
study of them is somewhat impeded, but the ab- 



THE DULL CHILD. 73 

normally slow mind gives us invaluable aid. To 
study the mechanism of a locomotive one must 
see it at rest, or when running at slackened 
speed. Men go to insane asylums to learn about 
aberrations of mind, and measure the healthy 
brain by the peculiarities of the diseased one. 

If the feeble-minded children had no moral 
claim upon us, it would be to our advantage to 
educate them in connection with our normal 
schools. Massachusetts, New York, and Wis- 
consin educate as citizens a large class of chil- 
dren that Michigan supports as paupers. Many 
children go through life hopelessly idiotic be- 
cause there is a small tumor of the inner ear 
which presses upon the brain, interfering with 
its action ; children have been restored to nor- 
mal mental conditions by the removal of such 
growths. Others of peculiar mental constitu- 
tion find in schools for the feeble-minded such 
training as no public school can give, and are 
saved from degradation and pauperism by the 
State, which does only her duty in caring alike 
for all her children ; for the State should afford 
schools for all minors or for none. 



74 THE STUDY OF CHILDREN. 

But this series of papers will have failed of 
its main purpose if mothers are not stimulated 
to a systematic study of children. A mother 
may observe and transcribe the dominant feel- 
ings and their means of expression in the young- 
est baby ; ten minutes of such observation daily 
will open her eyes to the development of habit, 
and she will find herself observing the awaken- 
ing of thought and the dawning of will with an 
understanding sharpened by these studies. An 
occasional review of her record may flash light 
upon something otherwise misunderstood in the 
character of her child. 

Men of science are indefatigable in their scru- 
tiny of nature ; no man would trust his memory 
alone for any account of the daily changes in a 
chrysalis as observed under the microscope. 
But we let these developing minds, with all the 
complexity of influences about and within them, 
pass from stage to stage of growth, making no 
note upon the processes. It is not items for the 
funny columns of newspapers that we beg you to 
collect — it is history we need, and no one needs 
it so much as the mother herself. The record 



THE DULL CHILD. 75 

of everything done by a child in one day, in the 
order of doing, would be a revelation to the in- 
experienced observer. Richter has well said 
that a diary about an ordinary child would be 
more valuable than many books about children 
by an ordinary writer. 



CHILDREN'S HABITS. 



Habit is the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious 
conservative agent. — Professor James. 

Parents are often responsible for a^critical 
and unkind attitude of mind on the part of 
their children towards associates. They culti- 
vate it in them by constant attention to bad 
habits, forgetting that the good habits are to 
the bad as the sands of the sea compared with 
its shells. 

For convenience, we will consider children's 
habits, as physical, mental, and moral. 

Prevention is better than cure, in habits as 
well as in sickness. A kindergartner has 
mainly to consider those which have begun in 
peculiarities or accidents, and with wise treat- 
ment prevent their becoming fixed. 

Singularity of gesture, or freak of facial 

76 



children's habits. 77 

expression, should be promptly treated with- 
out attracting the attention of the child to its 
difficulty, and in a playful manner, without 
speaking of the object in view. The turning 
in of toes, shrugging of shoulders, hanging of 
the head, even sucking of the thumb, may be 
corrected before the muscles are so contracted 
as to render the change of action difficult. If 
the child is shy, and these gestures arise from 
an over-consciousness of hands and feet, draw 
his attention to external objects by your own 
interested observation of them, encouraging him 
to imitate animals and their motions. The 
child who plays he is a restive colt, tossing his 
head and prancing in his harness, gets valuable 
aid in the proper carriage of his own body. 

Keep in mind, however, the safeguard of a 
new interest to prevent repetition of the mus- 
cular movement. 

When a bad habit is formed, even one which 
has pre-natal excuse for its existence, it can be 
corrected by gentle, continued watchfulness. 

A little girl of four years had a well-fixed 
habit of sucking her thumb, which was cor- 



/ b CHILDREN S HABITS. 

rected by occupying the little hands in bead- 
stringing, sticking shoe-pegs, etc. When the 
trial of bedtime arrived, the thumb was called 
the sleepy baby, and was playfully rocked in 
the crib of nurse's palm until the little mother 
slept, the hand being gently confined with a 
handkerchief during sleep, to prevent the un- 
conscious action. 

A child of three years entered the kinder- 
garten with a habit of crying. The mother 
was visited, and questioned about causes, but 
could give none. The child had cried ever 
since her birth. " Did you cry much before the 
child was born?" " Cry ! I cried six months, 
miss, hardly stopping to eat or sleep." The 
poor, uneducated, overworked mother was as- 
tonished to learn that her distress of mind had 
probably affected her child, and she was ready 
to help in undoing the injury. 

Whenever the child began to cry, a fresh 
flower, a box of beads to string, a proposed 
walk, or some such pleasant surprise, involving a 
change of interest and occupation, was instantly 
proposed, nothing being said about the tears. 



children's habits. 79 

A few weeks of this treatment produced a 
marked change, and at five years of age the 
child entered public school with no more ten- 
dency to "cry for nothing " than other children, 
having apparently forgotten her unfortunate 
habit. The parents had been requested not to 
rebuke her, or refer to it. 

Another child, with a like affliction, scolded, 
taunted, and ridiculed at home and at school, 
grew out of childhood before outgrowing the 
difficulty, and bore into womanhood a face dis- 
figured with passionate weeping, which had 
been aggravated by the cruelty of unthinking 
associates. 

A child entered the kindergarten with a 
habit of trotting both feet upon the floor, the 
strained and intense expression of her face 
meanwhile being painful to see. The mother 
told a pitiful story of running a sewing-machine 
twelve and fourteen hours a day before her 
birth, the wolf at the door having been just 
let loose by the protracted illness of the father 
of the child. The mother had coaxed and 
scolded the little one by turns, not knowing any 



80 children's habits. 

other method of treatment ; but she joyfully 
co-operated with me in another way. When 
the trotting began, sometimes a low cricket was 
placed under the weary little feet, which pre- 
vented the action as long as the position was 
comfortable, the removal of the cricket proving 
another surprise and diversion. Sometimes the 
child was asked to bring a box or slate, just 
as she assumed the posture, the facial expres- 
sion telling beforehand when it might be ex- 
pected. This child became very expert in the 
imitation of birds, probably because given a 
large share in these exercises, with a view to 
developing the muscles in an opposite direction 
from that to which they were predisposed. At 
the end of the year the trouble was only noticed 
at times of unusual excitement or weariness, 
and at the age of six years the pained expres- 
sion of the face and the tendency to trot ap- 
peared to be overcome. 

One delicate case may be cited in a family of 
different station. A little boy contracted a habit 
considered vicious and immoral by the mother, 
the father looking at it entirely from the physi- 



children's habits. 81 

cal standpoint. It was wisely agreed that each 
apply a remedy. The mother attacked the 
moral fortress with prayers and precepts. The 
father (a physician, by the way) believed with 
Agassiz that a physical fact is as sacred as a 
moral principle, and conscientiously pursued his 
method. The boy was ambitious to grow to 
papa's stature, as what boy is not ? He was 
also ambitious to do all his height and strength 
would permit in the care of the family horse, 
and the occasion for the first rebuke was chosen 
when the boy was helping to harness him. " I 
am sorry my son will never be tall enough to 
put on the head-stall, nor strong enough to 
drive the horse alone." 

" Why, papa, I am going to be as tall and as 
strong as you ! " 

" No, my son, you will soon stop growing, I 
fear ; you will be a weak, useless, dwarfed man, 
unless you break yourself of a bad habit which 
papa cannot break for you ; your hands will 
grow weak and trembling before you have 
begun a man's work." 

It is needless to say that the horse stood 



82 children's habits. 

unharnessed, and the boy was in his father's 
arms at the first grave sentence, and a sacred 
confidence was forever established between them. 
The hearty, well-meant promise, " never, never 
to do it again," was checked by the father, who 
would rather have a promise covering a speci- 
fied time and briefer than one of so much 
indefiniteness as "never, never." A daily con- 
fession, based upon perfect truth on the part of 
the child and patience on the part of the father, 
with mutual determination to conquer the evil, 
was agreed upon. It was not long before the 
time was lengthened between confidences, as 
the child's strength of will grew. Aids of cold 
bathing, diet, and exercise were added to the 
moral support of the mother and the desired 
result was at last obtained. 

Turning from physical to mental habits, not 
imagining that we can actually draw dividing 
lines, we yet feel ourselves upon more delicate 
ground, and offer opinions and suggestions with 
much trepidation. 

Long observation of children, and study of 
mental physiology and philosophy, leads to one 






children's habits. 83 

conviction : That mental habits receive a strong 
bias before the thought of mental training has 
entered the mind of the average mother. Leav- 
ing out the question of heredity, good mental 
habits find their beginnings in the unconscious, 
undivided attention of the child to objects which 
interest it. The child should be a long way up 
the " hill of science " before he is able of his 
own conscious will to fix his mind upon one 
object to the exclusion of another. There seems 
little danger in allowing an infant to ponder 
subjects which present themselves with suffi- 
cient vividness to hold his attention, but much 
danger in attempting to force his attention to 
our abstract theories and jargon in a language 
yet unknown to him. 

We often cruelly bewilder the child in its 
search after knowledge ; our merriment at 
Baby's blunders, in language alone, often places 
a difficulty in the child's path which he will 
not surmount in years. Who has not seen the 
"rattle-brained" child whose attention is diffi- 
cult to hold upon either work or play ? and 



84 children's habits. 

who shall say how much the rattle-box may 
have to do with that condition of the mind ? 

More than two thousand years ago Plato 
wrote : " Changes of toys should not be made 
too rapidly, for fear of developing instability of 
character." Is it not time to heed the caution 
of the divine philosopher ? 

Can we picture to ourselves what our state of 
mind would be, could we be placed upon another 
planet, with laws of nature quite new to us, the 
language unknown, and we deprived of power of 
escape from some grinning, gibbering giant who 
should consider it his duty to incessantly amuse 
us with a drum or a rattle, refusing us a 
moment's leisure to contemplate objects which 
interest us ; treating our blunders with hilarity, 
— in short, doing by us as we do by our babe ! 
Would we be likely to distinguish ourselves in 
wisdom or patience under such treatment ? 

Cultivating thought, even the crude thinking 
of infancy, is a help to language ; when we have 
clone what we can to let the child use its powers 
of observation, and it desires to express its 
thoughts in words, we should help it to correct 



children's habits. 85 

expressions, remembering how lasting are the 
habits of incorrect speech. 

A college graduate, a man of considerable abil- 
ity, says, "I will rise the window," having 
used the wrong form of the verb in childhood 
and being entirely unable to speak correctly 
whenever a thought urges him to spontaneous 
utterance. 

We should not fret the child by constant 
rebukes ; in language it is usually sufficient if 
we take care of our example. Children correct 
their language more effectually than we can 
correct it if we use a wise discretion. 

In considering children's moral habits let us 
keep in mind the greatest principle of education, 
which was taught by Aristotle, — good actions 
produce good habits. In forming a judgment 
of the child's action we need carefully to distin- 
guish between the act and the motive which 
prompted it. More carefully than we guard the 
child we must guard ourselves in correcting him, 
lest some unworthy motive, concerning appear- 
ances merely, or personal convenience, shall in- 
fluence our conduct. We are largely responsible 



86 children's habits. 

if there is confusion of right and wrong in the 
mind of the child. Disapproval, even punish- 
ment, concerning accidents is sometimes more 
severe than for an act of selfishness, and selfish- 
ness seems sometimes the only immorality of 
childhood about which we can approximate a 
correct judgment. That which we think lying 
is often confusion of mind concerning relations 
of number or size about which the child lacks 
judgment. 

A dream may be as vivid as a reality to 
the child mind. Two little girls met me one 
morning with astonishment, one exclaiming, " I 
thought you was dead ! Wasn't you dead ? 
I told sister you was ! " I was led into an 
alley and shown a hole in the ground, in which 
those children thought I had been buried, — one 
by supposed ocular demonstration, the other by 
received testimony. How easily they might 
have been proven guilty of lying to the satis- 
faction of a careless observer ! 

It is wrong to accuse of theft before a child 
can be expected to understand anything of 
property rights. A comparatively safe basis of 



childeen's habits. 87 

judgment may rest upon the secretiveness or 
non-secretiveness of the mind. To prevent a 
habit of misappropriation, the child should be 
kindly taken to the rightful owner of the object 
so appropriated, and gently obliged to restore 
the article, never permitting the mistaken kind- 
ness of allowing him to keep the article because 
the owner is generous or indifferent. 

Assume that the child has made a mistake 
which he is willing to rectify, not that he is a 
hardened breaker of commandments. 

Moral lectures separated from immediate 
wrong doing seem of little benefit. "Train up 
a child in the way he should go" cannot be 
wrenched into meaning that we should encour- 
age our children to be mere theorizers upon 
moral subjects ; hearers, not doers, of the word. 
There are abundant opportunities to begin the 
training of a child in right doing before he can 
understand abstract rules of action. An amus- 
ing anecdote of mis-applied effort may not be 
amiss. A little child, a mere babe, was sent 
to Sunday-school, where pious, but, we believe, 
mistaken efforts were made to instil moral 



88 children's habits. 

principles by teaching isolated texts of scripture. 
The child learned Mother Goose Melodies on 
week days with equal pleasure, and upon the 
occasion of a public display of juvenile virtue 
and wisdom, the little one was placed upon a 
desk in order that she might be seen as well as 
heard. With perfect gravity she recited: "In 
those days came John the Baptist, preaching in 
the wilderness of Judea, saying: Old Mother 
Flipperty Flapperty fell out of bed, raised up 
the window and tucked out her head, and said, 
John, John, our old gray goose is dead ! " 

Nor could the baby heart or mind grasp the 
problem presented by the unseemly mirth which 
greeted her effort. It seems an easy mental 
path from John the Baptist to the John with 
an interest in the old gray goose. 

With G. Stanley Hall we believe that the 
right should not be an exceptional thing, not a 
medicine, but a diet. There are hourly oppor- 
tunities to insist upon the unselfish doing 
whereby the child will grow into habits of 
righteous living. George Eliot never wrote 
truer words than that the ten thousand little 



children's habits. 89 

acts in the right directions may decide the im- 
portant choice in later life by which the man 
will rise or fall when a supreme temptation is 
presented. When we are unable to judge a 
single act by its possible motive, let us remem- 
ber the statement of Plutarch, " It is often well 
to pretend not to have observed some actions of 
children." 

A child is hardened by public rebuke. If we 
would help him to grow in sensitiveness to our 
approval and disapproval, let us privately 
rebuke his errors, remembering Rousseau's 
admonition : " You would indeed make a mere 
animal of him by this method if you are con- 
tinually directing him and saying, ' Go, come, 
stay, do this ; stop doing that ! ' If your head 
is always to guide his arm, his own head will 
be of no use to him." 

The importance of children's habits cannot 
be over-estimated, but we are too apt to think 
of the child's character as clay to be moulded, 
rather than as a plant in God's garden, we 
being permitted to go " thus far and no 
farther." The eternal boundaries of the indi- 



90 children's habits. 

viduality of life protect every soul from the 
profane touch of every other soul. 

An obedient, tractable little girl once turned 
upon her loving guardian with this question : 
" Now, if you should tell me to pick up this 
little stick, and I should say, ' I will not,' could 
you make me do it?" There was some hesita- 
tion about the answer and an attempted eva- 
sion : " I suppose my little girl would do it 
without making, if I told her to do it." 
" Yes, but I mean, could you or anybody else 
make me do it if / ivould not? " And then 
there burst upon the astonished listener this 
assertion of a will power possibly just dis- 
covered by the young explorer : " I think 
you couldn't make me do it, if you whipped 
me to death ! " "I suppose not, my child. 
We are so made that we can do as we will, 
and it is a dreadful thing to will to do 
wrong." 

Long silence on the part of the maiden of 
five, during which she smilingly picked up the 
stick which she had brought into the discussion, 
as if she felt the need of some self-discipline, 



children's habits. 91 

and the walk was resumed. Soon the little 
philosopher began again : " Could God make 
me pick up the stick if I wouldn't ? " "I 
believe not, my child." 

Here were mysteries of development which 
set the elder speaker to a kind of thinking 
which was too serious to admit of much chatter, 
and the child, evidently relieved of a weighty 
topic, appeared to forget it in play. A few 
days later she asked for a whole day in which 
nobody should tell her to do anything ; a day 
in which she need ask no permissions, but 
should do everything just as she pleased. The 
permission was somewhat fearfully granted, 
with some remark upon the danger of it, were 
she not a little girl who was pleased to do 
right. 

The trust was not betrayed, and the restraints 
placed upon herself in matters in which she dis- 
trusted her own judgment were remarkable. 
This privilege of self-government was frequently 
asked during childhood and early girlhood, and 
these days grew to be days of great pleasure to 
all concerned. 



92 children's habits. 

The child is now a woman of rare conscien- 
tiousness and straightforwardness, her will hav- 
ing been trained in such a direction that it 
spontaneously chooses that which is correct, 
her thoughts in the region of morals rising 
entirely above the mists of appearance into the 
clear shining of eternal right. 

It is not argued that all children of five years 
of age could be thus treated, nor is it assumed 
that this was the only way in which this par- 
ticular child could have been trained, — there 
are many paths that lead to the same " delec- 
table mountains." In whatever one we choose 
to tread, let us remember the words of W. T. 
Harris : " It is quite necessary that we should, 
as educators, never forget that the humblest 
child — nay, the most depraved child — has 
within him the possibility of the highest angelic 
being." 



LEARNING TO USE MONEY 



Not what I have, hut what I do, is my kingdom. — Carlyle. 

Beginning work several years since in one 
of the free kindergartens supported by private 
means, I was not only distressed by the improv- 
idence of the parents, but alarmed by the ten- 
dencies of thought and growing character in 
the children. A little boy of three years said 
one day in a burst of confidence : " When I git 
big enough to work and git money, I'll git 
drunk like my papa and mamma." On being 
told there was a better use for the money 
earned by work, he asked with great interest 
and curiosity if I did not get drunk Saturday 
nights. When asked how he thought I pro- 
cured my watch with which he happened to be 

1 Read before the Massachusetts General Conference of Char- 
ities. 

93 



94 LEARNING TO USE MONEY. 

toying, he said, " Somebody guv it to you." 
I answered that with my money I bought books 
and clothes and would be ashamed to have any 
one give them to me. His wonder and aston- 
ishment I shall never forget ; and his questions 
as to the cost of all my possessions, the amount 
of my money Saturday nights, and the puzzle 
as to how I could keep it over Sunday, showed 
an awakening perception which was most grati- 
fying. He often told the children afterwards 
that he was going to buy a horse of his own. 
These children, whose fathers worked on the 
streets and whose mothers went out to wash, 
brought cents almost daily which were wasted 
on candy and greasy cakes. On one occasion 
we took them to the country for the day, and 
one little girl who had a cent began to inquire 
for a store as soon as we arrived there. She 
was told that the stores were left in the city ; 
but she thought a peanut-stand would meet 
her needs, and on hearing that there were no 
peanut-stands in the woods, she began a fretful 
cry for candy, for peanuts, for cake, for gum, 
for anything, in short, for which she could 



LEARNING TO USE MONEY. 95 

exchange her cent. "Buy a daisy!" was half 
playfully suggested, and the problem was solved. 
She gave her cent to a playmate in exchange 
for a daisy and was happy. She had failed to 
gather any for herself while fretting for a store, 
but now that the cent was off her mind she 
plucked daisies with the others and was con- 
tented. 

To correct and counteract such evil tenden- 
cies as these, an experiment was tried, which 
we believe to have been remarkably suggestive: 
a bank in the shape of an elephant was pro- 
cured, and a bank account opened with such of 
the children as thought the fun of pulling the 
animal's tail and thereby throwing their cents 
from his trunk into his mouth, equal to that 
of buying candy and peanuts. 

Between Christmas and the following June a 
dollar and sixty cents were placed in the bank, 
thirty children having made deposits. They 
were charged not to tease for money, and the 
parents made no complaint of their having done 
so. The depositors who were to leave kinder- 
garten for public school in September were al- 



96 LEARNING TO USE MONEY. 

lowed to draw and spend the money at a five- 
cent store, the articles from which they were to 
choose being placed in a large basket, and con- 
sisting of a large variety of small and useful 
household things, as well as toys. On our way 
to the store, a child with sixteen cents stopped 
before a fruit store, saying, " I want a banana." 
She was told that she might buy it on her re- 
turn if she should want it then and should have 
enough money left. At the five-cent store she 
bought a fan for her mother, and a pocket-book 
for herself, into which she put her remaining six 
cents, with the decided expression, "I've bought 
all I want." She even went outside, and sat 
contentedly on the steps while the others made 
their purchases. When we passed the fruit 
store on our return, she asked in an indifferent 
but absurdly business-like tone what was the 
price of peanuts; but she spent nothing more, 
and what is better, gave no hints that she would 
like to have anybody spend for her. She 
carried the purse with the six cents therein to 
a picnic next day, taking care of it all day 
without losing either purse or money. 



LEARNING TO USE MONEY. 97 

Another child, who started for the store with 
seven cents, lost one in its frequent exchange 
from pocket to hand. She bought a doll, and 
carried a cent home to her mother. Another 
girl bought a tea-set, taking her remaining two 
cents to her mother and sister " for a present." 

A boy with seven cents bought a hammer, 
taking two cents home to keep. Another boy, 
with twelve cents, bought a garden rake and a 
rubber ball, putting the remainder in his jacket 
pocket, but soon handed it to me, saying, " Put 
this in the bank for me, and be sure you ivrite 
it down in the bank book." This anxiety about 
his security was quite natural, as we did not 
carry the book with us, and he thought it might 
be forgotten. He carried his rubber ball to the 
picnic next day, and was both generous and 
careful in play with it. 

No child was advised or influenced in its 
purchases except in the case of the banana. In 
every instance the saving was entirely spon- 
taneous, as well as the uses to which they put 
that which they saved. They were shown arti- 
cles which they could have bought for a cent, 



98 LEARNING TO USE MONEY. 

and they had the full consent of their parents 
to buy anything of which the teacher approved, 
but every child refused to spend all it possessed. 
It may be thought by some that this money 
should have been put in the savings bank at 
interest ; but the reward of self-denial in chil- 
dren should not be placed too far in the future. 
And there are many who will agree in the 
belief that the judicious spending of money is 
as much a matter of education as the saving of 
money, and that early training in this direction 
may be a needful check upon miserly tendencies 
which might follow the extreme wastefulness 
against which we are working. It is hoped 
that seed was sown which will bear fruit in 
future domestic economy. 



SOUND-BLINDNESS. 



He cared for their heads as he did for their hearts, demand- 
ing that whatever entered them should be plain and clear as 
the silent moon in the sky. — Pestalozzi. 

Sound-blindness is given as a title, not be- 
cause of its fitness, but because it is one in most 
common use and is made to cover as many 
shades of physical disorders as used *to be 
classed under heresy in the region of morals. 

Actual deafness to certain tones Dr. Clarence 
Blake (one of the most eminent aurists in 
America) thinks is never congenital, as is blind- 
ness to certain colors, exception being made of 
cases of children who have no perception of 
musical sequence and of tone value, who never 
appreciate and cannot reproduce a melody. If 
other cases exist, they are not on record. 

1 Read before the National Convention of Teachers at Nash- 
ville, Tenn. 

99 



100 SOUND-BLINDNESS. 

We are perfectly familiar with the fact that 
children learn to talk by a slow and laborious 
process; that they learn to see and hear by 
processes more or less analagous is not so well 
recognized. 

It is true that all infants are born deaf and 
remain deaf for a period, varying from hours to 
days, but comparatively few mothers know it or 
would believe the highest authorities, — Preyer 
of Germany and Perez of France. 

On the other hand, the same doubts and denials 
are instantly met when told that a child was 
unmistakably affected by a rose-colored curtain 
when only twenty-three days old. 

From observation we have learned that hear- 
ing develops more slowly than sight ; we know 
the infant slowly learns to direct its gaze — not 
being so well endowed as a chicken in many of 
the beginnings of life. From experiments made 
by myself I know there is wide variation among 
children of the ability to locate sounds. 

That there were such defects of sight as color- 
blindness and near-sightedness the public has 
been slow to recognize, and that Dr. Jeffries 



SOUND-BLINDNESS. 101 

met with stubborn resistance even from teachers 
■ when he began his investigations gives cause for 
shame and regret. 

It would seem that from analogy alone we 
should have looked for some defects of hearing 
not amounting to actual deafness. We can re- 
call such expressions as " you must hear with 
your elbows " ; " you would better take the 
wool out of your ears," and others of like pur- 
port, the cruelty of which can only be excused 
% on the ground that the inability to hear is 
attributed to inattention by those who make 
such remarks, for no one would use sarcasm 
upon a child afflicted with partial blindness, 
nor would partial deafness be so treated if 
understood. 

I once read to a young girl who was learn- 
ing to cook that onions were good for the 
mucous membrane. 

" Good for 'membrin ! " she exclaimed; " then 
I'll eat onions the rest of my life, for I never 
could remember anything." 

I could not help laughing, but it led me to 
closer observation of the girl, who proved to 



102 SOUND-BLINDNESS. 

have a disorder of the ear, which blurred her 
understanding of nearly all that she heard. 

Permission to enter the public schools for the 
purpose of testing the hearing of pupils was 
granted by the School Board of Boston, and 
standing upon the teacher's platform, the follow- 
ing words were pronounced after testing the 
pitch and loudness of voice by a few words 
addressed to the master, who stood at the oppo- 
site side of the room: ultramarine, altruistic, 
frustrate, ultimatum, ululate, Alcibiades, and un- 
augmented. Time was given between the pro- 
nunciation of each word for the slowest pupil 
to write it upon a slip of paper, words being 
repeated as often as required, some of them 
having been clearly pronounced five successive 
times. In the Latin School, two hundred and 
fifty-nine boys, whose ages range from twelve 
to twenty years, were given this test, eighty- 
four of whom made corresponding mistakes 
in the vowel sounds, their papers showing, e.g., 
altramarine, ultruistie, f rostrate, altimatum, elu- 
late, olulate, alulate, and unolmented. At this 
stage of the investigation Dr. Clarence Blake 

I 



SOUND-BLINDNESS. 103 

was consulted, who gave a much better list of 
test words ; viz. : fan, log, long, pen, dog, pod, 
land, feiv, and cat. 

The eighty-four pupils who confused the 
vowel sounds in the polysyllables were seated 
in their various rooms in the front row, while 
the observer stood at the back of the room, 
pronouncing these monosyllables but once, the 
pupils having had notice of this arrangement 
that they might give instant attention. Only 
four of the eighty-four spelled all these mono- 
syllables correctly, their papers showing the 
same confusion of sounds as in the poly- 
syllables. 

A final and individual test with an aurist's 
tuning-fork was now given the eighty pupils 
who had failed in correct hearing, Dr. Blake 
kindly furnishing the fork (C, 562 vs.) and 
directing its use ; the fork was struck with a 
rubber-covered hammer, the pupil standing 
twelve feet away, with his back to the observer. 
Two cases of deafness were found, which were 
known to the teacher, but not to the master. 
Several doubtful cases were found, which were 



104 SOUND-BLINDNESS. 

given the benefit of the doubt, as it was 
impracticable to have them examined by a 
specialist. 

In the English High School, two hundred 
and twenty-three boys between the ages of 
thirteen and eighteen were tested with the 
polysyllables, one hundred and five of whom 
made mistakes corresponding to those already 
noted. Of the one hundred and five, ninety- 
two misspelled from one to four of the mono- 
syllables, the errors being in general a repetition 
of those made in the Latin School, in which 
pupils are received prior to graduation from 
grammar school, while all English High 
School pupils are graduates of grammar depart- 
ments. 

In the Comins Grammar School five hundred 
and thirty pupils between the ages of eight 
and fourteen were tested with the mono- 
syllables, only thirty-four of whom spelled all 
the words correctly. The tests here gave 
fairer results, the same room being used for 
every pupil tested, and the test words being 
given to classes of sixteen only, there being 



SOUND-BLINDNESS. , 105 

no other pupils in the room and no outside 
distractions ; with the tuning-fork first used 
there were unavoidable variations of weight 
in the stroke, dependent upon the mental and 
physical condition of the observer, and Dr. 
Blake kindly furnished another more easily 
manipulated. Five children were found who 
could not hear this tone twelve feet away, and 
in neither case had the teachers or master 
suspected the existence of any disorder of the 
ear. Two of these were among the brightest 
in the room, and were seated furthest from 
their teachers ; the others were supposed to be 
dull and inattentive. After the discovery of 
deafness, these pupils were particularly ob- 
served, and the bright ones were found to have 
the habit of closely watching the lips of any 
one speaking, bending to one side during dic- 
tation exercises, in order not to lose sight of 
the teacher's face. 

We see from these tests one in each hundred 
in this grammar school has some disorder of the 
ear. To know if the five suffer from the same 
form of disease would require examination by 



106 | SOUND-BLINDNESS. 

a specialist. Dr. Clarence Blake consented to 
make the examination, but I was unable to 
take the time and trouble required to carry 
the work further. 

One is immediately struck by the differ- 
ence between final tests in the high schools 
and grammar departments, but is it not likely 
that the pupils in grammar school who work 
under the disadvantage of such a disorder never 
get beyond the grammar grade t 

What the per cent would be in the primary 
grades is matter of conjecture, but it would be 
interesting to trace the relation between tru- 
ancy and sound-blindness, and between general 
lack of interest in school work and dulness of 
hearing not even known by the child as exist- 
ing at all. 

The tests made prove conclusively the ex- 
istence of an obstacle to the acquirement of 
information on the part of pupils which has 
never been sufficiently recognized as existent 
and the causes of which should be made the 
subject of special examination. 

Agassiz wrote, " A physical fact is as sacred 



SOUND-BLINDNESS. 107 

as a moral principle." In this matter we have 
to deal with a physical fact of the gravest 
importance, one which may be so closely inter- 
woven with moral consequences that the teacher 
may not be able to excuse himself if he con- 
tinues to overlook it. Every child in our pub- 
lic schools should have the hearing tested at 
longer or shorter intervals. It is but just that 
the dull or inattentive child should have the 
benefit of such light as a test of this kind 
would throw upon his dulness or inattention, 
for the simple changing of his seat from the 
back or middle of the room to a point where 
he can hear all the teacher's words, might 
prove that there are some causes for inattention, 
mischievousness, and dulness that cannot be 
attributed to the perverseness of the child, nor 
can we flippantly assert that stupidity is his 
birthright. 



A STUDY OF ADOLESCENCE. 1 



A physical fact is as sacred as a moral principle. — Agassiz. 

Before entering upon this discussion, it is 
necessary to deprecate the one-sidedness with 
which it is usually treated. The rule seems 
to have been either to let the matter wholly 
alone as immodest, or to fly to the other 
extreme, which would preach its importance 
from the pulpit, discuss it at table, and teach 
it in school. It is natural that a physician 
whose specialty is diseases relating to this 
side of life should magnify the importance of 
all that relates to it; but we must insist 
that it should be neither neglected nor mag- 
nified. The great aurist will tell us that 
our asylums for idiots would be depleted if 

1 Read before the Women's Physiological Union, Boston, 

Mass. 

108 



A STUDY OF ADOLESCENCE. 109 

proper care were given the ear ; the great 
oculist will show that most brain troubles 
originate in improper care of the eyes ; but 
the most disastrous of all hobbies is this 
hobby of sex. Notwithstanding the dangers 
that beset us, we must face our difficulties, 
taking care to keep in mind the nice adjust- 
ment of all things natural, and help, if we 
can, simply to preserve that adjustment. 

That in this country the adolescent period 
is much shorter than in other parts of the 
world has been overlooked even by many 
physicians. It is, nevertheless, a fact that 
the physiological changes are exceptionally 
sudden, and that our boys and girls pass 
through this fundamental crisis without the 
safeguards which it is our duty to provide. 

Most mothers are aware of the more com- 
mon outward signs of this approaching change; 
but many think their whole duty performed 
when some special temporary care has been 
taken that for a few months colds are not 
contracted. In case of any general derange- 
ment of health the physician is more promptly 



110 A STUDY OF ADOLESCENCE. 

consulted at this period even by the most 
ignorant parents. No doubt every mother of 
a boy or girl of fourteen could describe the 
external changes which attend this period ; 
but if every mother knew, as does the physi- 
cian, that the change in her boy's voice bears 
little comparison to the greater change which 
takes place in his brain, and that the marked 
and rapid growth of her girl's bust is not as 
wonderful as the actual physical change of 
her heart which has not been complete in its 
form or action until now, — if mothers in 
general knew this and teachers understood it 
more fully, — then a paper of this nature 
would be superfluous. 

Important as are the physical changes, they 
are not of such vital consequence as the psy- 
chological ones. 

Poetry has paid its tribute in every tongue 
to this rose-hued day ; religious rites have 
marked its advent in all tribes and nations. 
It remains for Science to lay her steadfast 
hand upon that which poetry has unwittingly 
enervated and religion unconsciously dese- 



A STUDY OF ADOLESCENCE. Ill 

crated, not in irreverence nor in a spirit of 
captiousness, but in all earnestness to call 
attention to some mistakes which have to do 
with skepticism and irreligion no less than 
with the physical deterioration which has 
long been noted among the youth of our day. 
Divinity doctors know that revival statistics 
show more conversions at this period than at 
any other. Perhaps revivalist preachers do 
not know the wide-spread feeling of contempt 
often expressed in country and village of the 
annual convert who began wasting his spirit- 
ual forces in emotional displays when but a 
boy at a protracted meeting. Hospitals of all 
kinds, especially for the insane, show that in 
this critical period lie the roots of hosts of 
diseases that crop out in later life, and none 
is more fruitful than that of " emotional prod- 
igality " at this time. This particular error 
is founded upon the well-known plasticity of 
youth, and because of this plasticity the child 
should be protected from all one-sided, emo- 
tional influences. We might go back to Plato 
with great profit for our examples. How in- 



112 A STUDY OF ADOLESCENCE. 

spiring his lofty enthusiasm concerning the 
young ! How great and with what power for 
good his picture of the self-poised Socrates 
who met the beautiful Greek youths with the 
then necessary tribute to their physical per- 
fections, but never left them to dwell on 
these things, but called them higher so skil- 
fully that they hardly knew the divine im- 
petus had been from the outside. 

Ancient and modern writers and teachers 
have dwelt upon the psychological importance 
of this period. The mass of literature upon its 
physiological side alone is bewildering, but that 
great German philosophers of modern times con- 
sider it of sufficient importance to write whole 
volumes upon it, as Schneider, Kraft-Ebing, 
and others have done, may well cause us to look 
seriously into the subject. 

In view of these facts a paper was sent to a 
large number of parents, teachers, and physi- 
cians in America, with questions about personal 
observations which touched both the physiology 
and the psychology of the matter. 

Notes on general health, temper, studies, 



A STUDY OF ADOLESCENCE. 113 

dreams, and tastes at this period were sought. 
The returns brought out one point rather more 
prominently than was anticipated; viz., the 
importance of dreams at this stage of life. 

So many cases were reported as not particu- 
larly noticeable, except the increase of dreams, 
either beautiful or troubled, that this was made 
an especial point of investigation, keeping in 
mind the action of the brain in dreaming and 
the close relation between the brain and the 
sexual organs. These returns show a marked 
increase in the quantity of dreams at this pe- 
riod, and enough has been gathered to give 
weight to the theory that dreams are rhythmical, 
either increasing or decreasing at certain times 
in the month. The returns also indicate that 
radical changes are demanded in the mode of 
life and the subject-matter of education at the 
dawn of this period. Changes in hygiene, in 
food, dress, and social life are imperatively 
needed. Physicians and educators may warn in 
vain, but they must continue to make their 
demands. The dress of girls has been so wisely 
modified that statistics show an increase in 



114 A STUDY OF ADOLESCENCE. 

average height and waist measure in the last 
twenty years. If some dress adapted to this 
climate, but fashioned upon the model of ease 
to say nothing of grace, which Greek and Ro- 
man youths wore when physical beauty was at 
its highest, we might hope to see a long list of 
weaknesses and crimes reduced to the minimum, 
instead of waxing to an alarming extent. The 
dress of our boys of to-day is about as unhygi- 
enic as it is ungraceful and uncomfortable. 

Our errors in the subject-matter taught are 
equally grave. 

Philosophy, as at present forced upon imma- 
ture minds, is most disastrous. Introspection 
and any study which leads to it should be 
discouraged at this period. Questions of the 
reality of the external world, and of personal 
existence at this time of life, are as irrational 
as are the morbid appeals to morbid emotions 
in the revival meetings held for children. We 
challenge no motives in either case ; but we 
must condemn a course of philosophy which 
makes restless iconoclasts of young men, as 
severely as we criticise religious methods which 
make a skeptical man of almost every over- 



A STUDY OF ADOLESCENCE. 115 

pious boy. We have no right to play upon the 
emotions at this critical time of life; they who 
do so are directly responsible for much spiritual 
torpor and physical derangement in later years. 
Every study, every occupation, every interest in 
life, at this time should look to the conservation 
of force, and not to its dispersion, to a rigid 
economy of spiritual enthusiasm, combined with 
a careful training of the muscular powers. 

We must hold the attention and interest of 
our pupils without unduly exciting them. The 
subject of studies cannot be dismissed without 
a protest against botany with its present 
nomenclature, introduced as it is just when 
we would keep the thoughts of our boys and 
girls occupied with that which cannot be 
centred upon themselves. I know there is 
a theory that physiology should be taught 
through botany ; but it seems pernicious to 
lead the brightest and most curious minds 
away from plant life by all this physiological 
phraseology with the special side of reproduc- 
tion of animal life made prominent in so many 
of the botanical terms. It destroys that ad- 
justment for which we plead. 



MENTAL IMAGERY OF BOYS. 



What men think of the world depends upon what they know 
of it. — G. Stanley Hall. 

One hundred and thirteen schoolboys^ be- 
tween the ages of thirteen and eighteen, were 
asked to write their first thoughts or mental 
images on seeing the words being, the infinite, 
literature, abstraction, number, play, coldness, 
horror, heat, faith, and fun. A word was writ- 
ten upon the blackboard and a few moments 
given the pupils to transcribe their impressions, 
when the word was erased and another written. 
A few minutes each day were given to the 
exercise, some three or four words being given 
in succession, number, play, and coldness hap- 
pening to be given at one sitting. Many of 
the images have the local coloring of the 

116 



MENTAL IMAGERY OF BOYS. 117 

time and place. The boys had been studying 
Sir Walter Scott, as their papers reveal, and 
during the week of the experiment the entire 
city of Boston was thrilled with horror by a 
suburban railroad disaster, the shadow of 
which is cast upon these papers, which also 
reflects the enthusiasm of the prize drill, the 
papers as a whole giving one the impression 
of a kaleidoscope where thoughts take the 
place of colored glass, the feelings regulating 
the symmetry of the forms. 

Under being forty-four wrote "human be- 
ing," which may or may not have been an 
attempt to define ; eighteen wrote the name 
of the Deity under different forms ; eight 
wrote "something living"; four gave it as 
" our life " ; two as " human existence " ; three 
specifying Wallace, Adam and Blanche, " my- 
self " ; others giving general examples, as 
monkey, dog, horse, man and woman. If 
one could but know if the man were a war- 
rior, the clog a Saint Bernard, the monkey a 
wild one in a cocoanut tree, or one caged in 
a zoological garden, or passing its scarlet cap 



118 MENTAL IMAGERY OF BOYS. 

for the organ-grinder, — then the interest would 
be increased. 

Creation and something that cannot be lim- 
ited were suggested, and one poetic mind 
gave us this: "I see a beautiful being over 
a baby's cradle, rocking him to sleep." A 
minute description of that "beautiful being" 
would be valuable. Six gave no expression 
to their thought about the word, which might 
have been 'from shyness about giving the 
thought to another, or a misunderstanding 
of the experiment, and perhaps from a lack 
of any impression. 

Under the word infinite, twenty-nine directly 
named God ; one, love of God, none of these 
being of the seven who named Him under 
"being"; twenty-one gave no expression; five, 
the algebraic quantity oo ; five, the sky ; three, 
the infinite number ; two, the unknown ; one, 
the problem never finished, 10 ■+■ 3 ; something 
dark ; the future ; number of wonderful things ; 
number of boys ; something beyond us ; space ; 
distance ; " a long line of which I cannot see the 
end " ; small thing ; the universe ; a large tree 



MENTAL IMAGERY OF BOYS. 119 

with infinite number of leaves ; a sermon in 
which the minister said, God is infinite love ; 
the air ; time ; city ; a large man ; the Globe 
building, — to this the boy added, parenthet- 
ically, " infinitely large " ; miraculous ; everlast- 
ing ; heavenly spirits ; space ; day ; end of be- 
ing ; life everlasting ; Venus on the sun ; some- 
thing to happen ; form of verb ; grammar ; book 
entitled Letters from Hell. No blanks were 
given with this word, but there were four under 
literature, a suggestive fact. 

To twenty-six literature suggested books, some 
specifying good books, story books, etc. ; seven 
wrote reading ; three, history ; three, Longfel- 
low ; three, Scott ; three, Waverley ; Ivanhoe, 
Dickens, The Inferno, Shakespeare, Homer, and 
Milton each having had honorable mention. 
Two dime novels were suggested. Among pic- 
turesque thoughts appeared : "A man printing 
a book"; "with literature comes sight of im- 
mense library with books of all ages and peo- 
ples " ; "ancient Greece, especially Athens and 
old Greek tablets." A painting, funny composi- 
tion, piles of papers, and something classical are 



120 MENTAL IMAGERY OP BOYS. 

as definite, perhaps, as some of the adult notions 
of literature. 

Under abstraction there were thirty-seven 
blanks ; twenty-three attempted to define or il- 
lustrate, some of these efforts being too unique 
for omission, as flavoring for ice cream ; flavor- 
ing put up in bottles ; getting a tooth pulled ; 
apples and baskets ; spoke of a wheel ; kind- 
ness, and a man with head resting on hands, 
elbows resting on marble top table ; a boy lean- 
ing on his hand and looking as if he saw some- 
thing away off ; sitting at a window in the 
country looking blankly into the air ; a crazy 
person comes to mind ; " I picture a man in deep 
thought " ; works of nature, especially beauti- 
ful scenery. Others wrote kindness, goodness, 
grammar, future, a wood, part of speech, an 
abstract person, something small, pleasure of 
having plenty of money, baskets of flowers, and 
this list of words about which I am writing. 

Under number, thirty-seven tried to define or 
illustrate ; fifteen wrote that it brought to mind 
various numbers, 1,000,000, 1, 2, etc.; eleven 
left a blank ; nine wrote a figure or figures ; 



MENTAL IMAGERY OF BOYS. 121 

two, algebra. Limitation was twice suggested, 
and under the preliminary " it brought to 
mind," or " it puts in my mind," were written : 
a row of blocks ; a collection of men ; the times 
I have been in swimming ; the wonders of 
arithmetic ; and number 30 La Grange Street. 
Others stated without explanation : the first 
page of an arithmetic ; the score in a game of 
tennis ; a number of soldiers ; a lot of people 
on the Fourth of July ; sand in the sea ; crowds 
of people in various places. One boy wrote 
sinrply " newspaper," and another that number 
led to numerals. A connection was made be- 
tween this and the two succeeding words, viz. : 
" On seeing number I thought of a number of 
boys — think of them yet as I see play, and the 
same group appears to be playing, but growing 
cold toward each other." 

Three wrote unreservedly : I see a figure ; I 
see a figure on the door; I see an unreadable 
number that I once saw. The italics are, of 
course, my own. 

Under play thirty-seven defined or illustrated ; 
five left blanks, one of whom gave the most 



122 MENTAL IMAGERY OF BOYS. 

elaborate of the mental pictures under abstrac- 
tion ; seven specified children, some designating 
little children, and kittens playing in various 
ways ; thirteen thought of base ball ; four, of a 
theatrical performance, one of these specifying 
Lady of the Lake ; two thought of Richard the 
Third ; four, of laWn tennis ; three, of piano 
playing, one giving this : " Play brings to me 
the figure of a person seated at a piano engaged 
in playing it." One wrote without preliminary : 
"A large stage over which are some red cur- 
tains and a very small man declaiming." The 
vividness of this sketch leaves the bad construc- 
tion of the sentence for an after-impression. 

Three wrote : " I see boys or children running 
round " ; "I see the boys play " ; "I see some- 
body playing." 

It is interesting to note in the first of these 
vivid images that the boy saw more clearly as 
he wrote, or he would not have changed his 
sentence from " I see boys " to "I see boys or 
children." 

Twenty-six defined coldness, the spiritual md 
physical significance being about equally re re- 



MENTAL IMAGERY OF BOYS. 123 

sented ; twenty-six thought of winter, or a day 
in winter ; seven simply wrote ice ; five gave 
blanks ; others giving such picturesque details 
as these : a man with a very stern face ; a large 
field of ice ; a frosty ground with here and 
there a stump ; I think of the look of coldness 
on the face of a high-toned boy toward his 
poorly dressed comrades ; surly temper ; anger ; 
shivering ; Greeley's expedition to the North 
Pole ; proud person ; firmness in a man • mak- 
ing a call on a young lady who is not at home ; 
dressing myself in a big overcoat ; not being 
sympathetic toward the poor ; don't notice any 
of your parents ; I think of unhospitality ; as- 
sociated with kicking the feet against the dash- 
board of a horse car, and an ulster with a high 
collar ; Iceland ; sharp cutting wind ; I see the 
frost and snow ; I see a cold, haughty person ; 
dark gray objects appear. 

Fifty-one defined heat ; five left blanks ; three 
thought of a stove ; two, of a furnace ; one, of a 
furaace for melting glass, and one of a smelting- 
furnCvje ; one, of a register, and another, of a 
rat iator, gilded ; one, of the school-house boiler- 



124 MENTAL IMAGERY OF BOYS. 

room ; two, of summer ; two, of fire ; three, of 
the sun ; one, of the desert of Sahara ; the 
others, of parading around the city; a red-hot 
ball rolling on the floor ; melted butter ; anger ; 
a day in East Lexington with buzzing of locusts ; 
a fat man trying to get his breath ; a large vat 
under which is a fire filled with saints. 

Fifty-five attempted to define faith; four- 
teen left blanks ; three mentioned dogs ; two 
wrote simply a cross ; one, a church ; one, a 
catechism ; one, a prayer-book ; and others 
such typical subjects as Daniel in the lions' 
den ; tableau once seen, picture of Faith, Hope 
and Charity ; one thought of the Supreme 
Being, and another of an Irishman's exclama- 
tion. To one was suggested the water-cooler 
on the Common ; to another the story of Saint 
Elizabeth. One wrote this : " Faith brings 
a figure of a child on a high fence, a person 
below trying to get it to come down, and 
then the child drops." Another gave this 
dramatic picture: "A girl following a very 
ugly man through a dark tunnel." And still 



MENTAL IMAGEKY OF BOYS. 125 

another : " A frightened child clinging to its 
father for protection." 

It was surprising that the word fun proved 
the least interesting of all, eight even leaving 
a blank. I half suspect these boys did not 
choose to write their notions of fun. A smil- 
ing face, a laughing boy, and a girl laughing 
were suggested, one boy writing : " I see 
boys playing." 

Fifty-two defined or illustrated horror, eight 
of whom wrote "murder," and one " assassina- 
tion"; some left blanks; others wrote death, 
fire, an avalanche, drowning and battle, two 
only suggesting ghosts. It would be interest- 
ing to know whether each thought of a par- 
ticular fire, death, or battle. One wrote : 
" I imagine a murder " ; another, simply a 
picture of a man to be hung. Others as 
follows : a beer-saloon ; one being killed ; the 
accident at Roslindale ; a horrible-looking word, 
— looks as if it should be spelled hell; makes 
me think of seeing some one in distress ; makes 
me think of some terrible accident ; a woman 
and a mouse ; a lady looking at an alligator ; 



126 MENTAL IMAGERY OF BOYS. 

seeing a man run over here ; a boy I saw- 
stabbed, and another run over by a horse-car ; 
a fellow holding his hand in the air, his hair 
standing on end; an old lady holding up both 
hands; horror is represented by a man falling 
from a great height, and many people are 
watching him; horror brought to my mind a 
person dying who regarded death with horror ; 
makes me think of the time I was chased ; 
makes me think of the feeling I would have if 
a large spider were crawling over me ; the feel- 
ing I imagine if I were drowning; I think of 
a robbery ; something cringing ; a train, a 
smash-up with piercing shrieks ; a woman 
standing with hands thrown back (from a 
picture I saw when a child ) ; a dream of 
snakes I had five years ago; I see a house 
on fire, a girl with long, streaming white 
hair, dressed in white, standing at a window 
with the fire all around her. 

A picture of a window was drawn on the 
blackboard for the same boys, who were asked 
to imagine it a real window, and to write what 
they saw in looking through it. These are the 



MENTAL IMAGERY OF BOYS. 127 

pictures seen : A tree and some houses ; I seem 
to see a man wearing an old felt hat. I am 
looking in the window of a small cottage ; there 
is an old lady in a large arm-chair, knitting ; 
her young daughter is getting supper, and all 
seems comfortable and cosy. 

Air, houses, trees, darkness, Christmas tree, 
children playing, a procession, soldiers, streets, 
people, many persons, horse-cars, express teams, 
large buildings, etc. 

I see an old shoemaker pegging away at a 
laced boot. 

A lot of boys going home ; a long narrow 
lane in the country with a pasture on one side 
and a pond on the other, a guide-post and hills 
in the background ; a green field in the country. 

A moonlight night, a large brick house and a 
tree. 

An old woman with a large dog that lives on 
the same street as I. 

I seem to see a beautiful house surrounded by 
trees and a beautiful lawn. 

A horse and team standing. 

When I look through the window, I seem to 



128 MENTAL IMAGERY OF BOYS. 

see a boy fishing in a river, and he seems to be 
catching many fish. 

Through an imaginary window I can see a 
field, at the bottom of which there is a lake 
with boats on it, and beyond is a green forest. 

If to a room, the form of the room and ar- 
rangements. Reminiscences : Looking out of 
that imaginary window I seem to see my 
mother scolding my brother. 

I would see some glass. 

I seem to see trees, a farm-house, grass, and 
cows, and the Presidential Range in the White 
Mountains. 

The boy who was run over by a horse-car 
and his arm badly crushed ; I saw a man fall 
down ; a procession of boys marching along ; 
the scenery from a window looking toward 
Mount Washington ; the man selling lobsters ; 
a palace court-yard ; engine going to a fire and 
a crowd following it ; I seem to see a black sub- 
stance through the window ; the sky ; makes 
me think of the faces at Blackwell's Island, 
looking earnestly at the Boston boat. 

A criminal behind a prison door; a stormy 



MENTAL IMAGERY OF BOYS. 129 

night ; I * see a face — it is a sad one with large 
eyes, which have evidently been crying — it is a 
girl's face with a charity cap on ; a train rush- 
ing along filled with passengers ; a landscape ; 
I see a face through this window — it appears 
to me like a look-out on the world ; a game of 
foot-ball ; a horse-car loaded with people going 
down the street ; a field ; a woman sewing ; I 
see the future ; I see a horse and team passing ; 
transparent ; distant hill ; a dungeon ; trees, 
fields, spring, horse-chestnut tree ; a hill cov- 
ered with snow and a few bare trees ; makes me 
think of seeing some one in a window ; a large 
room with fine things in it ; soldiers ; an empty 
room ; friend ; nothing in particular ; the State 
of Illinois ; I saw some houses through the win- 
dow ; I see the trees and houses as I look 
through the window ; stars ; I can see green 
fields and the ocean, with a lighthouse on a 
large rock in the middle of it ; a railroad sta- 
tion. 

I am in a farm-house on a farm, and looking 
upon the cornfield and a few trees ; some trees ; 
a lawn inclosed by a fence, with a fountain in 



130 MENTAL IMAGERY OF BOYS. 

the centre ; I see a house in the distance ; sky, 
trees, houses seem to be the only panorama of 
a window. 

I seem to see a blackboard ; a room ; saw a 
regiment of soldiers passing ; I see a large 
house, square and brown ; a dog-fight on Co- 
lumbus Avenue ; a comfortable room ; I see an 
evening sky full of stars ; I see the dog outside ; 
looking at a picture, I think of what it is of, 
where it is, and who was engaged in it ; a 
steamboat passing down stream ; seeing a sight 
through a window which can never be forgot, 
either of horror or pleasure ; I see a young 
man; it reminds me of the garden, a bed of 
geraniums at the house I lived in when I was 
in Germany ; looking at a boy ; a scuttle of a 
sinking ship one would see as if painted on 
a panorama before him from childhood to old 
age ; I see through this window the ocean with 
about fifty yachts sailing ; a tree and some 
houses ; I see a child running across the street, 
a train is coming, and the child is knocked 
down and killed ; a lamp-post ; a boy fishing. 



MENTAL IMAGERY OF BOYS. 131 

Eight boys drew a blank, and several of them 
drew pictures of windows on their own papers. 

Such., meagre data as the above show that 
those who disparage "mere sense knowledge" 
disparage children, who up to these ages show 
few traces of any other kind of knowledge, but 
think mainly in visual pictures, their mental 
life being chiefly made up of imagination and 
memory of their personal experiences. Logical 
definitions are never attempted. A true psycho- 
logical definition of such terms could be got by 
greatly increasing the number of such returns 
and presenting the results by graphic, statistic, 
and descriptive methods. If anywhere constant 
appeal from the individual to the general con- 
sciousness is constantly needed, it is in the 
realm of abstract and general terms. If a care- 
fully selected set of terms in the ethical field 
could be selected, and returns gathered thus and 
separately for different ages and sexes, valuable 
results might be expected. 

Sir Francis Gulton in some studies of this 
nature, but on adult minds, makes a table of 
results from which he draws this conclusion : 



132 MENTAL IMAGERY OF BOYS. 

" Hence we may see the greater fixity of the 
earlier associations, and might measurably de- 
termine the decrease of fixity as the date of 
their formation became less remote." 

The city teacher, more than any other, needs 
to grasp this law, and give the children an 
early and vivid outlook upon nature ; walls and 
horse-cars, pavements, and engines are so likely 
to demand the attention of children that no 
opportunity should be lost to give a glimpse of 
the sky or clouds ; to turn the thoughts to a 
grass plat or even a blade of grass, and so open 
the windows of the soul in the direction of influ- 
ences which will accelerate spiritual and intel- 
lectual growth. 



ADVERTISEMENTS 



Kindergarten Stories and Morning Talks. 

By Miss Sara E. Wiltse, author of Stories for Kindergartens and Primary 
Schools, x + 212 pages. Teachers' and introductory price, 75 cents. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

First Week of September I 

Mary had a Little Lamb • • • • 2 

The Bramble Bush and the Lambs 4 

Second Week of September 6 

Story of Birds and Fish 6 

Third Week of September 8 

Coming and Going ° 

Fourth Week of September ll 

Tom the Water-Baby Il 

Story of a Mouse x 9 

The Ermine 2 3 

Stories for Prang's Trade Pictures 24 

No. 1. — The Farm-Yard 24 

No. 2. — The Gardener 26 

No. 3. — The Carpenter 27 

No. 4.— The Tinsmith and Printer • • • 28 

No. 5.— The Baker 3 1 

First Week of October 34 

The Anxious Leaf 34 

The Walnut-Tree that wanted to bear Tulips 35 

The Walnut-Tree that bore Tulips {continued) 3$ 

How Coal is made 4° 

Second Week of October 42 

The Lion and the Mouse 43 

Milk, Butter, and Cheese 45 



viii CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Third Week of October 51 

Leather 51 

A Legend of the Great Dipper 54 

Fourth Week of October 58 

Hair and Bones 58 

Grandma Kaoline 62 

Fifth Week of October . 65 

Grandma Kaoline's Story 65 

Horn 68 

The Hare and the Tortoise 71 

First Week of November 73 

Glue r . 73 

Second Week of November 77 

Thanksgiving Story 77 

Steak and Tallow 79 

Third Week of November 84 

Story of Three Bears 85 

The Bear that hugged the Tea-Kettle 89 

Fourth Week of November 9 1 

Florence Nightingale 9 2 

Peep Star ! Star Peep ! 93 

First Week of December 9° 

Second Week of December 9 6 

Saint Elizabeth and the Sick Child 97 

Third Week of December 99 

A Jewish Legend 99 

Saint Christopher 100 

The First Christmas Presents 103 

Fourth Week of December 105 

First Week of January 105 

Charlotte and the Ten Dwarfs 105 

Second Week of January i°7 

Our Daily Bread i°7 



CONTENTS. IX 

PAGE 

A Story for Willie Winkle no 

Third Week of January 113 

The Snowflakes 113 

Fourth Week of January 117 

The Story of King Midas 118 

The Little Cookie Boy 119 

First Week of February 122 

Helps to an Object Lesson on Calico and Print. No. 1 122 

Second Week of February 125 

Helps to an Object Lesson on Calico and Print. No. 2 125 

Third Week of February 129 

Fourth Week of February 129 

Amy Stewart 129 

First Week of March 132 

Helps to an Object Lesson on Paper 132 

Second Week of March 135 

Second Lesson, or Review of Paper-Making 135 

Third Week of March 137 

Helps to Object Lessons on Rubber 138 

Kitty Caoutchouc 139 

Fourth Week of March 144 

Second Lesson on Rubber 144 

The Pea-Blossom 146 

Cloth and Paper Story 150 

First Week of April 153 

Baby Calla 153 

Second Week of April 156 

The Wind and the Sun 156 

Third Week of April 158 

A Queer Place for a Bird's Home 158 

Fourth Week of April 160 

Fifth Week of April 160 

The Drop of Water 161 



X CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

First Week of May 163 

A Legend of the Cowslip „ 163 

What are the Dandelions? 165 

Iddly Bung's April Christmas Tree 166 

The Flax 170 

Second Week of May 176 

The Green House with Gold Nails 177 

The Bees' Pockets 180 

Carl and the Earthworms 181 

Third Week of May 183 

Oak-Tree and Acorn 183 

The Greenies 185 

Saint Elizabeth and the Roses 186 

Fourth Week of May 187 

Helps to an Object Lesson on the Hickory-Tree 187 

The Mice in a Robin's Nest 189 

The Little Harvest Mouse 190 

First Week of June 192 

The Elephant 192 

The Camel 194 

Second Week of June 196 

Hercules and the Wagoner 196 

The Crow and the Pitcher 197 

Third Week of June 199 

A Story for the Lessons with Staffs and Rings 199 

The Ugly Duckling 201 

We thank Thee 211 

A True Bear Story 211 



Besides the Stories the book contains suggestions for presenting 
them to the children, outlines for talks, hints for clay modelling, and 
innumerable helpful remarks. 

GINN & COMPANY, Publishers, 

BOSTON, NEW YORK, AND CHICAGO. 



